Superintendent's Message

Dear Newport Schools Parents, Families, and Staff,

I hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend! And now we enter the last fun, learning, and joy filled weeks of the 2024-2025 school year.

As we near the end of the school year, I have been reflecting on the progress we have made together implementing Newport Public Schools’ strategic plan and our Portrait Of A Graduate vision for the skills and traits we want our seniors to graduate with as they enter the world. Looking back over the school year, we have accomplished a great deal including:

• Implementing a new rigorous and equitable curriculum across all of our schools.

• Conducting more than 560 classroom learning observations to see firsthand how our teachers and students are adapting to our new curriculum.

• Improving student attendance and decreasing chronic absenteeism.

• Building awareness of and buy-in to our Portrait Of A Graduate.

We have been periodically updating the School Committee on progress implementing our new strategic plan and you can click here for a summary of all of the major milestones reached, and where we still have work to do. Thank you to everyone who has participated in this process to improve learning in our schools and to ensure that our students graduate with the skills, knowledge, and traits we are striving towards in our Portrait Of A Graduate. You will, of course, see our students embodying this very vision at Rogers High School graduation ceremony on June 12th!

The Newport City Council continues to debate how to move forward with the FY 2026 city budget, so I do not have any updates to share on the school budget this week. As soon as we have more clarity, I will provide an update to our Newport Public Schools community. In the meantime, Director Gonsalves has been very busy working to see how we can balance our over $906K gap. Due to our financial situation, layoffs were issued last week and some positions/roles were reduced or restructured. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the state and City support will be there for us to keep the gap from growing and some funding can be found to help restore roles/positions.

As you can see in the newsletter items below, there are so many wonderful things happening across all of our schools. Rogers physics teacher Brian Colahan has been named a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching recipient. That’s a huge honor, congrats! Our Rogers and Thompson students have been doing amazing work in civics, and our Pell students are learning about the ocean and increasing recycling. Great work!

Please remember to continue to focus on Attendance Matters, Every Day, and have a great week of learning everyone!

Colleen Burns Jermain, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools

Rogers physics teacher Brian Colahan was recently named a recipient of a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST). Wow, what an honor! PAEMST is the highest recognition that a kindergarten through 12th grade science, technology, engineering, or mathematics teacher may receive for outstanding teaching in the United States. Presidential Awardees receive a certificate signed by the President of the United States, a trip to Washington D.C. to attend a series of recognition events and professional development opportunities, and a $10,000 award from the National Science Foundation. Congratulations Mr. Colahan, and thank you for everything you do for our students!

In partnership with the Rhode Island Schools Recycling Project, Pell students have been working hard all this year to increase recycling and reduce food waste through the use of composting. Several students have served as Recycling Rangers, with a mission to educate and encourage their fellow students. Last Friday, the Rhode Island Schools Recycling Project held a ceremony to congratulate our Pell Rangers on their efforts and to recognize other staff, coordinators, lunch aides, and custodians participating in the program. Great work everyone!

Last Monday, Secretary of State Gregg Amore honored high school students from across the state selected as 2025 Rhode Island Civic Leadership Award winners at a State House ceremony. A big congratulations to Rogers students Hannah Conroy (left) and Kira Parsons (right) on winning 2025 Rhode Island Civic Leadership awards! The award is given annually to high school students who have made outstanding contributions to their schools and communities over the past year.

Last Friday, Rogers High School chemistry students visited URI to compete in the university’s annual statewide chemistry contest. In addition to competing, our students were able to choose a tour of the chemistry building or the pharmacy building. Congratulations to Rogers High School sophomore, (Richard) Conner Spinney who came in 2nd place in the first year division of the chemistry contest!

Cell phone free Fridays continue through the end of the school year at Rogers. This has been a great practice run for next school year, when cell phones will be prohibited in the new Rogers High School per a final cell phone policy that will be formally adopted by the School Committee at their June 10th meeting. Let’s put those phones down and concentrate on learning! 📵