PROVIDENCE — The School Department is embarking on a grand experiment that could have wide-ranging implications for other school districts in the state.

Under orders from the state education commissioner, the district this fall will begin filling vacancies in six schools based not on seniority, but on whether that teacher is a good match for the job — and the school.

“I’ve been a principal for 11 years,” said Michael Lazzareschi, who heads the new Nathan Bishop Middle School, “and I’ve never had the ability to pick my own candidates. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing the lines of teachers waiting to be interviewed.”

Although the Providence Teachers Union is threatening to sue, claiming the state education commissioner doesn’t have the authority to overrule a union contract, Schools Supt. Tom Brady says the rank-and-file have shown real enthusiasm for the new system.

“Five hundred and twenty four teachers applied for 75 positions,” Brady said. “That far exceeded our expectations.”

Even more surprising, Brady says, is that so many of the applicants — 325 — were teaching in suburban districts, even private schools.

Maybe, Brady says, it’s the economy. But school officials also say that there’s a new excitement stirring in the city’s schools, driven by the opening of an $80-million career and technical high school and a completely redesigned middle school on the city’s East Side (Nathan Bishop).

“These are teachers who live in Providence and teach elsewhere,” Lazzareschi says. “They love the city and have always wanted to be part of public education here. Now they want to give something back.”

Whatever the reason, Brady says the new hiring policy, which has been constantly revised over the past three months, represents an enormous sea change in the way the Providence schools do business.

Under the old system, vacancies were filled based on seniority. When there was a vacancy, the most senior teacher systemwide bumped someone with less seniority. In a district with more than 2,000 teachers, however, bumping could produce wholesale dislocations. In recent years, when there have been large numbers of layoffs, smaller schools have lost up to one-third of their staffs.

“The old system was dehumanizing,” Lazzareschi said. “It created tremendous upheaval in teachers’ lives. You were treated as little more than a number.”

For the first time, a teacher from a suburban school district has just as much likelihood of landing a job in Providence as someone from within the system, all things being equal. In the past, vacancies were typically filled from someone within the Providence schools.

In his February order, then-Education Commissioner Peter McWalters ordered Providence to abolish seniority because he felt it stood in the way of improving student achievement. The bumping process often results in a school system where large numbers of teachers are constantly in flux, a system where someone with a lot of seniority winds up teaching a class because of the number of years he or she has logged in the district, not because he or she is the best match for that class.

This fall, hiring for vacancies in four schools — Hope High School, Veazie Street Elementary School, Carl G. Lauro Elementary School and Perry Middle School — will be based on whether the applicants have the skills needed to serve students in those particular schools. The same process will apply to Nathan Bishop and the Providence Career & Technical Academy, a modernist structure being built next to Central High School.

The entire school district will move to the new hiring system in the 2010-11 school year.

“It’s a huge change,” said Tim Duffy, executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees. “It allows management to put the needs of students as their top priority.”

This spring, each candidate for the 75 vacancies submitted an application, including a resumé, cover letter, three pieces of student work and evidence of their professional training to the six pilot schools. Because many teachers hadn’t written a resumé or cover letter in years, the School Department held workshops in early June to coach teachers.

For the first time, candidates are being interviewed by a team that includes the principal, two teachers selected by the principal, two chosen by the School Improvement Team and a department head (now called a “teacher leader”) at the high school level.

Although the principal makes the final decision, his judgment should reflect the consensus of the committee. Because this is an unfamiliar role and a huge responsibility for members of the committee, teachers received extensive training from the New Teachers Project, a nonprofit group that trains mid-career professionals to enter the classroom.

One of the reasons teacher unions formed in the first place was to prevent principals from hiring friends or firing teachers they didn’t like.

To avoid any hint of favoritism, the School Department, working with the union, developed an interview process that relies on questions from a common bank of questions that use concrete teaching scenarios and short model lessons.

The interview is designed to measure specific skills: Does the teacher know his subject? Can she demonstrate knowledge of recent research in his discipline? Is he able to demonstrate his knowledge within an actual model lesson?

The other important piece of the new hiring system is mutual consent. Teacher and principal must agree that the school is a good match. There will be no “on-the-spot” hiring.

The whole notion behind “criterion-based” hiring is that it empowers principals to put the right teacher in the right classroom. It also allows the superintendent to hold principals accountable for improving student achievement in their own buildings because they finally have the authority to hire their own staff.

The new hiring process upends the past churning of school staffs.

“We are matching teachers to schools based on the teacher’s qualifications and the needs of students,” said the new state education commissioner, Deborah Gist. “It’s how we all got our jobs. We demonstrated our abilities.”

The Providence Teachers Union, however, says that the state had no right to intervene in a contract. Union president Steve Smith said any changes in hiring practices should be negotiated, so “you don’t make it up as you go along.”

Smith says the School Department is making arbitrary decisions. Elementary school teachers with a middle school “endorsement” are no longer allowed to apply for middle school openings, despite the fact that they have taught in middle schools for years.

Starting with the six pilot schools, only teachers with secondary school certifications will fill middle school vacancies because these teachers are formally certified to teach specific content areas such as math and science.

(A middle school endorsement allows elementary school teachers to teach sixth grade, which, in some schools, is part of elementary school while in others is part of middle school).

Meanwhile, Smith’s biggest objection is that the new hiring plan takes a crucial piece of a teacher’s terms of employment out of collective bargaining.

“We want very specific job criteria and we want experience to count for something,” Smith said. “This is all about control. We want a partnership.”

Brady agreed that the new hiring policy should be included in the next collective bargaining agreement. (A new three-year contract, retroactive to 2007, was ratified by the school board last week).

“That’s progress,” Smith said of the superintendent’s comment. “It’s a move in the right direction.”

lborg@projo.com