Wayne J. Montague, center, principal of the School of Leadership at Hope High School, receives applause from Arthur Petrosinelli, left, principal of Hope’s School of Information Technology, and instructor Terry Cannon.

The Providence Journal / KATHY BORCHERS

PROVIDENCE — We must begin to change the way we do things in Providence, Supt. Donnie Evans said last night in his first State of the Providence Schools address.

Evans reflected on the district’s accomplishments during his first 20 months in office without glossing over the many challenges facing the system.

Although the schools have recently seen substantial gains in test scores, 63 percent of students in grades 3 through 8 read below grade level and 69 percent perform below grade level in math, Evans said. Add high schools to the mix and 70 percent are below proficiency in reading and 69 percent in math.

“This is simply not acceptable,” Evans told a large gathering of principals, union leaders and city leaders. Mayor David N. Cicilline was delayed by weather in Washington, D.C. “I suggest to you that the time for debate has passed for whether or not we are going to make changes to improve student achievement. The time to act is now.”

With that, Evans announced a series of new initiatives that address his strategic plan, Realizing the Dream, which calls for improving student achievement, creating safe, caring schools, improving public trust and making sure that school programs are cost-effective.

The new programs include:

•Opening more alternative schools for students who aren’t making it in a traditional setting. This fall, the school department opened a small alternative high school for ninth-graders who were in danger of dropping out. Evans will now hire a consultant to develop a charter-school prototype, with the goal of opening at least one alternative school in September 2008.

“Unfortunately,” Evans said, “our dropout rate is 29 percent. In addition, too many students fail or find themselves suspended or expelled because our schools didn’t motivate them or otherwise meet their academic or social needs.”

•Adopting school uniforms in all elementary and middle schools. According to Evans, research shows that in schools where uniforms are required, behavior problems decline and students are more likely to identify with their school. Although not a mandate, Evans said he will strongly urge every principal to implement school uniforms.

•Creating a district call center to improve communication between parents and staff, including expanded translation services for families who don’t speak English as their first language.

•Introducing reading classes and adding 20 reading teachers at the middle school level. Five of the district’s seven middle schools are classified by the state as in need of improvement. In January, state education Commissioner Peter McWalters told Evans to come up with a plan for improving the district’s lowest-performing schools or face possible state intervention.

•Introducing a new math curriculum for struggling students in elementary and middle school, as well as offering a new algebra readiness program for eighth-graders in low-performing schools.

Evans also said that he was forming a couple of task forces to find out why special-education students and students with limited English proficiency continue to be the lowest achievers in the district. “I have enough experience,” Evans said, “to know that we can and must do much, much better.”

Evans, however, spent the bulk of his 45-minute speech highlighting the district’s accomplishments since his arrival from Tampa in September 2005. Seventeen schools are now classified as moderately performing, up from seven schools last year. Although they continue to lag far behind their suburban peers, the Providence public schools showed dramatic improvement on the state assessments this year. In sixth grade math, student performance increased by 50 percent.

“I am pleased to report that the state of Providence schools is improving,” Evans said, “and we are moving toward creating a district that will be a national leader in educating urban youth.”

Many of the district’s accomplishments involve putting the right people in the right jobs, Evans said, adding that he created a new leadership team, “my team, who would stand with the mayor, the school board and with me for better or for worse.”

According to Evans, the district has focused on two goals during the past year: making schools more welcoming to the public and treating parents as partners, not obstacles. Evans has also asked principals to become academic leaders, not only building supervisors and school disciplinarians. This past week, he announced the transfer of more than a dozen principals and assistant principals in an effort to put the strongest leaders in schools that need the most help.

Evans singled out several schools, including Hope High School, for praise. Hope not only earned full accreditation from the prestigious New England Association of Schools and Colleges, but the school received accolades from the former state-appointed special master, Nick Donohue, in his final report on Hope in December.

“Hope accomplished this feat through a relentless focus on order, discipline and student achievement,” Evans said. “They changed the culture and climate in the school while tirelessly pursuing and engaging their parents and the community.”

But Evans will be hard-pressed to follow through on his dreams if the General Assembly is successful in eliminating Governor Carcieri’s proposal to increase state education aid by 3 percent across the board. The school district is also in the middle of negotiating a new contract with the teachers’ union, and no one knows how much that agreement will ultimately cost.

“It will be a huge challenge,” Evans said after last night’s address. “We have to make sure that the lights are on and the schools are heated.”

But, he said he has confidence that the General Assembly will do the right thing because it recognizes that the district is poised

lborg@projo.com