Michael Lazzareschi, principal of Martin Luther King Elementary School in Providence, and Rhode Island Principal of the Year, talks to 4th grader Ana DePina about the enrichment program in which she will be participating as Lazzareschi does playground duty with the older students before school starts.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — Michael Lazzareschi begins his school day the way he ends it — with the children.

In the morning, the principal is out in front of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, greeting parents as they drop off their children. He spends the next hour popping into the classrooms, checking on substitute teachers, touching base with teachers and making sure the hallways are clear and quiet.

Every Thursday, Lazzareschi, accompanied by members of the Parent-Teacher Organization, leads school tours for prospective parents.

“I put myself out there,” the youthful principal said yesterday. “I have an open door policy. Teachers aren’t afraid of having conversations with me in the hallways. And parents aren’t afraid to walk in, tell me their problem and know that it will be handled.”

After three years at the helm of King, Lazzareschi has won not only the respect of parents and staff, but also the admiration of his peers across the state. Last week, he was named elementary school principal of the year by the Rhode Island Association of School Principals. He will be honored in Washington, D.C., in mid-October.

“Mike’s approachability has made a huge difference,” said PTO President Jill Davidson. “He has made the school drop its guard. Teachers understand that if someone is coming into the school, it’s for a good reason. And outsiders are now saying, ‘I’ve heard great things about that school.’ ”

For many years, Vartan Gregorian in Fox Point was the only city elementary school that garnered positive publicity, and it was the school of choice for white, middle-class parents. Thanks in no small part to an active PTO, King is starting to generate positive buzz, and, for the first time this year, there was waiting list to get into the school in the Mount Hope neighborhood.

“The PTO raved about him,” said Joseph Militello, chairman of the principal-of-the-year selection committee. “They have a real influx of neighborhood students into the building, kids who had been going to private schools. He reached out to the community” and brought in outside partners.

On a rainy Friday, Lazzareschi dropped into a kindergarten class to introduce a couple of visitors to Jody Weathersby, a 6-year-old boy who says he wants to be a principal just like Mr. L.

“When I wore tasseled loafers,” the principal said, “Jody asked his mother where he could buy the same shoes.”

Lazzareschi, who became a principal at the tender age of 28, said he has had a couple of great mentors who taught him that leadership is all about building relationships. Most principals who leave the district for the suburbs never come back. Not Lazzareschi, who took a job in Cranston in 1998 only to return to Providence four years ago to run West Broadway Elementary School.

Three years ago, he became the principal of King, where his first step was to shift the emphasis from controlling bad behavior to supporting student achievement. At the first sign of trouble, Lazzareschi is on the phone to a parent. If the behavior continues, the parent is invited to meet with the principal. That approach, he said, has eliminated 90 percent of the behavioral issues.

Lazzareschi was lucky. He inherited a robust PTO and a plethora of rich partnerships with area colleges and businesses, including Brown University, the University of Rhode Island and Miriam Hospital. At a time when the arts have fallen prey to budget cuts, King is able to offer an after-school program run by the Music School of the Rhode Island Philharmonic.

Thanks to the dean of engineering, Brown graduate students regularly teach science classes at King and the university sponsors a yearly science fair. None of these partnerships would be possible without the support of the school’s faculty and parents.

King has also made significant academic strides, moving from a low-performing to a moderately performing school that met all of its annual academic targets last year. The school is improving in part because Lazzareschi encourages flexibility and experimentation.

Last year, in effort to boost student test scores, Lazzareschi asked his third grade teachers to specialize in a subject, which led to one teaching reading, another math and a third writing.

“I looked at our third-quarter tests and said, ‘Let’s mix things up,’ ” he said. “It just so happened that one teacher loved math and another loved reading.”

Lazzareschi also knows that best principal allows his staff to take the lead, so it is not unusual for him to ask his faculty to develop a particular curriculum or after-school program. He also knows the value of saying thanks, and so the school hosts the occasional ice cream day and wiener lunch. During the rigors of testing week, one teacher makes fruit smoothies for her stressed-out colleagues.

“The King staff is really entrepreneurial,” Davidson said. “Most of them are willing to go above and beyond, to reach out to local institutions. Mike does his best to support that.”

lborg@projo.com