Krieger: Gist could insert herself into superintendent search

PAWTUCKET - Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist may insert herself into the city's search for a new school superintendent, said a representative from the Gist's office this week, even as some School Committee members maintain their stance that she should be excluded.

Committee members have claimed that Gist should be kept out of a search for a new school chief to replace outgoing Superintendent Hans Dellith, but they may not have a choice in the matter, according to Gist's spokesman Elliot Krieger.

"If they don't ask her to be a part of it she'll decide what to do then," Krieger told The Valley Breeze.

State and federal laws give Gist a certain level of authority over a district that perennially struggles, according to Krieger.

"The commissioner has a strong investment in Pawtucket schools and they are now under a status that perhaps gives her more control," he said.

Krieger said that regulations contained within the federal No Child Left Behind Act also grant Gist authority over Pawtucket schools.

He said Gist will let "play out" the city's superintendent search process now under way and depending on what happens with either her inclusion or exclusion, will decide at a later date what action to take, said Krieger.

"She has made no determination at this time as to whether any action on her part will be necessary," he said.

"Composition and parameters of new superintendent search committee" was again on the agenda for a School Committee scheduled for last night, Nov. 10.

School Committee Chairman Jim Chellel Jr. said prior to last night's meeting that he would ask for a vote on a superintendent search committee that includes someone from Gist's office.

He had earlier said she should be excluded because of her recently announced stances on teacher unions and eliminating seniority as the factor in deciding classroom assignments,

"I will reluctantly ask Commissioner Gist to sit at the table, to at least include a representative from her office," said Chellel. "I would hope that since she's only been around for a short time that it would be someone else from her office."

Under Rhode Island's education laws, districts like Pawtucket's that continue to show insufficient educational progress are put on "Progressive Support and Intervention" status, or PS&I as they call it in education circles.

After three years of insufficient progress, "there shall be progressive levels of control by" the Rhode Island Department of Education, according to the Rhode Island School Performance and Accountability System established by the Rhode Island Board of Regents.

Click here to read the School-Performance Classifications:

www.valleybreeze.com/www/School_and_Districts.pdf

Pawtucket's elementary, middle, and high schools are all in their seventh year under an "inadequate yearly progress intervention status" according to the Rhode Island Department of Education's Web site.

"Progressive levels of control" means that Gist by law has the authority to assert increasing amounts of authority when it comes to running Pawtucket's schools, according to Krieger, including but not limited to Gist's right to restructure or even close Pawtucket schools.

He noted that state law grants the School Committee, not Gist, final authority to hire a new superintendent.

According to the School Performance and Accountability System, "state law does not establish a specific timetable or sequence of actions" by Gist.

Gist still has not been contacted by Pawtucket school officials, according to Krieger. The Pawtucket School Committee has repeatedly put off a decision on the makeup of a potential search committee after failing to come to an agreement on how best to find Dellith's replacement.

Pawtucket Mayor James Doyle has informed the School Committee of his intention to create a search committee for a new superintendent that includes Gist, while the School Committee has voted to send the mayor a letter informing him that they have the authority to determine the makeup of the search committee. Unlike Doyle, the majority of School Committee members don't want to include either Gist or a superintendent from a nearby school district on the search committee.

"The fact that they want to exclude the commissioner, someone who's only been on the job a couple months and has shown herself to be a breath of fresh air, to me that's pretty unbelievable," said Doyle.

In an e-mail to Chellel from School Committee member David Coughlin copied to The Breeze last Friday, Coughlin declined the role of chairman on the search committee as previously suggested by Chellel as a possibility, saying that the "hostile intra city governmental environment" played a role in his decision.

"After sitting through the last couple of School Committee meetings, especially executive session where three members cannot articulate a sentence without interjecting the so called 'F-word' multiple times, reviewing the agenda where the members demonstrate their intention to handicap the next (superintendent) with the present (deputy superintendent) and business manager for the next three years," among other items, said Coughlin, he will not spend time on an "excessive, time-consuming exercise in futility" by trying to manage the School Committee's search committee over Doyle's search committee.

Also on the agenda last night was a proposal to extend the contract of deputy Superintendent Kim Mercer by three years.