Superintendent Message

September 25, 2024

Dear Newport Schools Parents, Families, and Staff:

This week we are so excited to be opening each of our schools – Pell Elementary, Thompson Middle School, and Rogers High School – for Open Houses. Our principal, administrators and community partners absolutely love seeing students, parents, and families visiting classrooms and connecting with our One Newport community partners who are also participating in open houses. Here are some fun photos from Pell Elementary’s open house days on Monday and Tuesday. Thompson is holding their Open House this evening from 5:00-6:30 PM and Rogers will hold their open house Thursday evening from 5:00-6:30 PM.

For our juniors and seniors, the fall is a critical time to be working on your college plans. Juniors should be developing a set of schools they are interested in visiting and they should also start working on college admissions essays if that is their pathway. Others that may be considering service to our country through JrROTC or heading off to an internship or career planning should reach out to Executive Director Young or their school guidance counselor. Starting early gives plenty of time to craft a great plan for the future. And for our seniors, now is the time to be finalizing your plans, whether it be for college applications, interviewing or reaching out to potential employers, or applying for financial aid, internships, and scholarship opportunities. The Rhode Island Student Loan Authority’s College Planning Center is a wonderful resource for our college-bound students with upcoming workshops on the College Admissions process, the Common App, and Financial Aid and filling out the FAFSA application. And of course our Rogers High School guidance counselors are always available to give our students one-on-one assistance regarding their college and career plans.

I also want to provide our entire community with an important update about student enrollment projections. Each week we monitor the student enrollment in our schools. Last week NPS had the following data: 9.20.2024 Enrollment . For a variety of demographic reasons, Newport Public Schools and school districts across the state are seeing decreases in student enrollment. This has big implications for the resources we receive from the state’s educational funding formula. According to the most recent estimates provided by our consultant, the New England School Development Center, Newport Public Schools is projected to see a 22% enrollment decrease over the next 10 years. Their data is helpful. Even though it may not be exactly on target year to year, it is pretty close. We also need to be aware that changes to housing availability and other events also impact these projections. For instance, there is a 50 unit project going on on Hillside Avenue in the former Park Holm area and with the opening of the new RHS in September we may see a surge in enrollment as we did when we opened the new Pell Elementary School. I will be sharing more about this and impacts on our school department budget in future newsletters.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to our teachers and their work to implement our new strategic plan with its emphasis on rigorous instruction. This week, I was able to see lots of reading and writing- as well as lessons on grammar regarding common and proper nouns. At Pell I saw lots of letter-sound connections work at the elementary level, math assessments happening with our STEM teachers, and strong conversations and connections happening between our students and teachers. Our coaches for MLL and literacy are already in the classrooms supporting our teachers. Our work and strategic plan come to life in our classrooms, and that’s exactly what I was seeing. We’ll continue our progress implementing our new strategic plan and giving our valued teachers the professional development support they need.

Have a great week of learning everyone!

Colleen Burns Jermain, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools

ATTENDANCE: We need everyone’s support and participation!

This is our fourth week of the 2024-2025 school year and we need to work on attendance at all three of our schools. Compared to last year, we’re behind where we should be and need to be in terms of student attendance at each of our schools. We can turn this around, as we did last school year, with a continued emphasis on Attendance Matters, Every Day! Please help by establishing a strong school day routine for your child with a regular time for homework, regular time for bed, and regular time to be ready and out the door for the school day.

Parent/Family Advisory Meeting

Finally, thank you to all of the parents and family members who participated in our first Parent/Family Advisory Council meeting last week. If you would like to join the Parent/Family Advisory Council and have your voice heard at future meetings, please email Cathy Nash (cathynash@npsri.net).

MLK Holiday Help

Need some extra support for the holidays? Our One Newport community partner the MLK Center is here to help.

To register for holiday help (Thanksgiving Assistance Program, Holiday Assistance Program and/or Santa’s Workshop), visit the MLK Community Center, Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., starting Tuesday, October 15, 2024.

Registration for Thanksgiving Assistance Program ends Friday, November 15, 2024

Registration for Holiday Assistance Program and Santa’s Workshop ends Monday, December 11, 2024.