Providence Supt. Donnie Evans wants to reassign principals to improve test scores. Some parents object. It all goes before the School Board tomorrow.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 25, 2006

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Providence Supt. Donnie Evans is proposing a wholesale reassignment of middle school principals that some parents and staff say will destroy what little stability students have.

The proposed shakeup, which goes before the Providence School Board tomorrow night, calls for moving 11 middle school principals or assistant principals this fall. It's part of a sweeping reorganization of the city's seven middle schools aimed at boosting student achievement.

Evans said he felt compelled to intervene after seeing the latest round of state test scores:

"That's what caught my attention," he said. "These are the poorest-performing schools in the district, and they have been that way for quite some time."

But a number of middle school parents and staff say that principals are being pulled out of schools where they have made a difference; they worry that a leadership shakeup would result in considerable turmoil and say that the children would be the ones to suffer.

A couple of East Side parents met with Evans recently to find out why he is transferring principal Nicolau Amaral from Nathanael Greene Middle School to Classical High School, where he will be an assistant principal.

"I'm very puzzled," Thomas Schmeling said. "He has been a great principal from a parent's perspective. He's been open and helpful and cooperative."

Schmeling questions why Evans is intervening in Greene because it's the highest-performing middle school in the district, meeting 35 of its 37 targets under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

"We're concerned because the school seems to be performing well," he said. "This came as a shock and a shame."

Amaral said he has made "deep changes" at Greene, urging department heads to become educational leaders, evaluating instruction and reaching out to parents. "What the heck is going on here?" Amaral said. "I know my craft. It's like practicing all the time and not being able to go to the championship game."

Evans would say only that there are "personnel issues that my staff has been working on with him that have not been addressed to my satisfaction."

The middle schools have long been the Achilles' heel of the city's public school system. In September, the state Department of Education hired nine veteran educators to help six middle schools and two high schools figure out how to identify -- and fix -- weaknesses in discipline, instruction and teacher training.

Under No Child Left Behind, the superintendent or the state can restructure a school -- hiring new leaders or new staff -- if it has failed to make adequate yearly progress for three consecutive years.

"We are well past that point at our middle schools," Evans said. "We could sit back and wait for the state to intervene, but that's not my style."

But Dr. Harlan Rich, an East Side parent, said the real issue is the lack of talented, experienced administrators to fill these top roles.

"We want to give Dr. Evans the benefit of the doubt," he said. "But how much upheaval can a school sustain?"

Evans said the district has enough raw talent to prepare effective school principals: "This is as much about training the people you have as it is about recruiting new people."

In 2004-2005, the principals of Perry Middle School were credited with transforming a very troubled school into a community where order and respect are the norms. Yet, Evans is transferring two of Perry's three leaders: Luke Driver is going to Gilbert Stuart Middle School and Robert Palombo is going to Bridgham Middle School.

"I'm very disappointed, almost heartbroken," Palombo said. "I've been here four years and now it's gone, it's just gone."

Some teachers are so upset that they are writing a letter to Evans asking that he reinstate the two principals.

"Providence is going to be a mess next year," said Donna Perrotta, a Perry teacher. "You can't fire everyone across the board. I'm worried about the children."

"For the goodness of the school, leave these guys alone," said Scott Turner, who was named middle school teacher of the year in 2004. "These guys are the genuine article. The kids love them."

But Evans pointed out that Perry is the lowest-performing middle school in the district, after Nathan Bishop, which is closing this fall.

"There is a lot of discord," he said. "The faculty are sharply divided over a number of issues. They point to leadership as contributing to these [problems]. They refer to a group of teachers as the Perry mafia."

But one of the turnaround specialists thinks that the middle schools are making progress. Leslie Hegert, a specialist with the Education Development Center in Newton, Mass., expects to see an improvement in test scores when the results are released a year from now. The center is providing the consultants who are working in the middle schools this year. At Greene, she said that the students showed dramatic improvements when they took local tests on skills that they had failed earlier in the school year.

According to Hegert, leadership is about building a team, not relying on one heroic adult to transform a school.

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