PROVIDENCE — Despite a budget crisis, Schools Supt. Donnie Evans is moving ahead with a number of new programs that are designed to raise student performance, improve teaching skills and hold students and staff to high standards.

The district has focused on two over-arching goals in the past year: making schools more welcoming to the public, and treating parents as partners — not obstacles to be overcome. Evans has also asked principals to take on another role, that of academic leader. In June, Evans announced the transfer of more than a dozen principals and assistant principals, part of his plan to place the strongest leaders in schools that need the most help.

This year, Evans is adding three more goals to the Providence Effective Schools Initiative, a model patterned after a similar program in Tampa, Fla., where Evans once worked.

The first goal asks that teachers and principals hold all students to high expectations. Teachers will be asked to display evidence of high-quality student work and they will be asked to communicate those expectations to parents at open houses and other forums. Principals will discuss the importance of high standards and will reward academic performance with honor roll celebrations and other public events. More students will be enrolled in advanced classes and schools will provide opportunities for tutoring before and after school.

“We’re talking about building children’s self-esteem, their feelings of self-worth,” Evans said.

He acknowledged that this may be a tough sell for teachers who assume that urban students can’t achieve at the same levels as their middle-class peers, but he believes that once they see it happening in their schools, their attitude will change.

“We’re asking principals, ‘What would it take to do this?’ ” Evans said. “Some have expressed a desire to travel to other schools to see what they’re doing.”

The second goal is to help principals and teachers use data to not only measure student performance, but to modify instruction based on the strengths and weaknesses of the students’ test data.

“I look at data a lot, but then I’m a math teacher,” Evans said. “We have to help teachers become more comfortable with assessments.”

And it’s not just test data that Evans is talking about. He wants teachers to look at attendance rates, suspensions and tardiness and compare that information with student performance. At Perry Middle School, the principals discovered that only a handful of students repeatedly got in trouble, and yet they were disruptive enough to interrupt the entire class.

Evans said his third goal is to improve classroom teaching.

“We want a highly qualified teacher in every classroom,” he said, “not just someone who knows effective teaching practices but someone who has the interpersonal skills to connect with kids.”

Evans and his chief academic officer, Sharon Contreras, are already working on training units for new teachers that focus on successful teaching skills. The teachers who work in schools classified as in corrective action — those schools that have repeatedly failed to make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law — will receive five days of concentrated training before Sept. 5, the first day of school.

Evans will also:

•Create a district call center where parents can get their questions answered. Too often, Evans said, parents call the district and get bounced from one department to the next in search of the right information. The center will also offer translation for parents who don’t speak English as their first language.

•Ask the Annenberg Center for School Reform to analyze the effectiveness of the central office.

•Introduce reading classes and add 20 reading teachers at the middle school level. Five of the district’s seven middle schools are classified 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.

•Introduce new reading and math curricula in the elementary and middle schools facing corrective action — schools that haven’t made adequate yearly progress for at least three years. The reading program, called Reading Matters, is a scripted curriculum designed to develop basic skills in students who are reading well below grade level.

•Adopting school uniforms in all elementary and middle schools. Evans said that research shows that in schools where uniforms are the norm, behavior problems decline and students develop a stronger sense of community. About 12 schools have or will adopt uniforms this fall.

But the budget crisis has forced the department to take several programs off the table, including an evening school for high school students who find it difficult to attend classes during the day. The program would have been geared toward teenagers who work during the day, baby-sit younger siblings or have their own children.

Evans said that he also wanted to provide more reading programs and language interpretation services, but they have been set aside due to the budget restraints. This spring, the department had to cut $6 million from its proposed budget after the General Assembly rejected Governor Carcieri’s proposal to award 3 percent increases in school aid.

The district faces another big challenge: How to implement the state’s new high school graduation requirements, which take effect this year, without the money to support the new programs. In Providence, this year’s senior class must complete a portfolio of their best work, plus complete end-of-course exams, to graduate. These requirements are especially daunting for large high schools like Central, Hope and Mount Pleasant, because teachers must develop a system to keep track of hundreds of pieces of paper for each student.

Evans talked candidly about the frustration of trying to move a district forward in an era of diminishing resources.

“It’s a huge, huge challenge,” he said in an interview on Friday. “It’s an uphill climb. Some days, I question whether I want to come to work, but I’m committed to doing what I do.”

Based on what Evans is hearing from the legislature, it sounds like the district will be in the same financial straits next year.

“It couldn’t be coming at a worse time,” he said of the reductions in state aid. “How can we continue to make progress with the same amount of money?”

lborg@projo.com