Thursday, March 14, 2013
The Newport School Committee approved a bid award for a consulting firm to search for Superintendent John H. Ambrogi's replacement during its meeting on Tuesday.
The Newport School Committee took one of the first steps towards hiring a new superintendent on Tuesday night by hiring consulting firm New England Development Council (NESDEC) in a 5-2 vote. Committee members Robert Leary and Thomas Phelan voted against accepting the firm's bid. Superintendent John H. Ambrogi announced his plans to retire in late 2012 and will leave Newport Public Schools in Jan. 2014. NESDEC, based out of Marlboro, MA, beat out two other firms to find Ambrogi’s replacement. Their proposal included a $7,960 fee plus $2,960 in additional expenses, which was the lowest bid of the group. Ray and Associates, Inc., based in Iowa, submitted a proposal for a base fee of $15,500 with an additional $6,775 in expenses, topping out …
Thursday, January 3, 2013
The Newport City Council and School Committee members were officially sworn in during an inauguration ceremony on Wednesday night.
The Newport City Council and the Newport School Committee were both sworn in during a joint inauguration ceremony at the O’Hare Academic Center at Salve Regina University on Wednesday night. School committee members took the oath first. All members are returning, except for former Chairman Patrick Kelley, who seat has been taken over by newcomer Robert Power. Congressman David Cicilline administered the oath to Rebecca Bolan, Sandra J. Flowers, Power, JoEva Gaines, Robert Leary and Charles Shoemaker. Thomas Phalen was not in attendance. Shoemaker and Gaines were elected as Chairman and Vice-Chair, respectively. The City Council also received their oath from Cicilline. Henry Winthrop was elected as Chairman of the Council and Mayor of …
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
The Newport School Committee accepted recommendations from the Pell Enrollment Options Subcommittee to add modular classrooms to the Pell Elementary School.
The Newport School Committee accepted the recommendation from the Pell Enrollment Options Subcommittee to pursue leasing modular classrooms at the new Pell Elementary School at Wednesday night's meeting. The vote, which passed 4-3, came with the stipulation that if leasing the modular classrooms could not be fulfilled, the committee would pursue moving all kindergarten classes to an alternate location. The subcommittee’s original recommendation was to move all kindergarten classes to the Triplett School. The goal of the subcommittee, which consisted of teachers, administrators and parents, was to identify, assess and recommend options for the school committee in the event that enrollment at the Pell Elementary School is so high that all …
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Parents of a girl who went unaccounted for at the beginning of the school year addressed the Newport School Committee during Tuesday night's meeting.
Bus company First Student could be on the chopping block after the Newport school system received complaints from parents that students were not on the correct bus or accounted for. The complaints have prompted the Newport School Committee to seriously question First Student's services. John and Michelle Brennan, parents of a kindergarten student at Underwood Elementary School, are not happy with First Student after their daughter went unaccounted for two days in a row at the beginning of the school year. The Brennans addressed the Newport School Committee during Tuesday night's meeting to vent their frustrations with certain staff members of the bus company. The couple, who took to the podium with a framed picture of their daughter, …
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
The school committee voted to create a subcommittee to address the rise in kindergarten enrollment.
In a 5-2 vote, the Newport School Committee approved the creation of a subcommittee to evaluate options to address potential Pell School over enrollment. Sandra J. Flowers and Jo Eva Gaines were the opposing votes. The committee would consist of two school committee members, two administrators and parents of children affected by the situation. Recent spikes in kindergarten enrollment prompted the school committee to add two additional classrooms to the new elementary school, but even those may not be enough. This year, kindergarten enrollment rose to 213, up more than thirty students from last year’s 179. Twenty-nine of those students are from military families. “Demographic estimates are exactly that – estimates,” School Committee Chair …
Thursday, August 30, 2012
School officials announced that the school department had more than
During Tuesday morning's meeting with the Newport School Committee/Newport City Council Liaison Committee, Superintendent John Ambrogi announced that due to accounting errors from the school's former business administrator, hundreds of thousands of dollars had been booked incorrectly. Committee members also discussed Pell School updates and continued shared service talks. School Budget/Surplus During the meeting, Ambrogi said after an analysis of available funds, there were thousands of dollars that had been booked but not spent. The previous business administrator had booked $120,000 in supplies and technologies that the school committee believed had been allocated as expenditures, he said. Health care expenditures were also double booked…
Friday, June 29, 2012
The Newport City Council approved the FY 2012-2013 budget proposal during it's meeting on Wednesday.
The Newport City Council unanimously approved the FY2012-2013 budget during Wednesday's meeting, which included at 2.5 percent property tax increase, level funding the school committee and a 2.47 percent general expenditure increase. Alliance for a Livable Newport Treasurer Ron Becker addressed the council and commended their work on the budget proposal. Becker said his biggest complaint of past years' budgets has been the mismatching of revenues and expenses. He told the council that this year's proposal had done a good job of matching the two. The proposed combined expenditures for all funds is $115,754,174, a $20.6 million decrease from last year due to decreases in capital spending for the new Pell Elementary School. The total general…
Thursday, June 14, 2012
City councilors expressed disappointment in the school department's hiring of a business manager instead of leaning towards shared services.
Members of the Newport City Council expressed their disappointment over the school department's hiring a new business manager during its meeting Wednesday night. The school committee approved a contract with Joan Tracey, Deputy Director of Finance of the Newport Utilities Department during Tuesday's school committee meeting. Tracey's contract comes on the heels of an analysis of the school district's finance department's deficiencies by accounting and consulting firm LGC&D, LLC. Business Manager John Miley recently resigned this month, leaving the position open as of June 30. Waluk said the hiring was counterintuitive to the idea of cost-saving by increasing shared services between the school and city departments, and was disappointed in …
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Elementary school students will pay 25 cents more for lunch, while middle and high school student will be charged 15 cents more next year.
The Newport School Committee did not come to an agreement regarding a one-year contract renewal been Compass Group/Chartwells during its meeting on Tuesday night, but members did unanimously vote to increase school lunch prices. In a memorandum to the Newport School Committee, Superintendent John Ambrogi wrote that he could not recommend the contract as advised by the committee's legal council after an analysis. Ambrogi did, however, recommend to increase lunch prices for paying students by 25 cents for elementary school and 15 cents for middle school and high school. Currently, Newport's elementary school lunch price is 50 cents lower than the lowest East Bay school and the middle and high school lunch price is 40 cents lower. Prices are …
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
School officials said they would not request level funding.
The Newport School Committee met with the Newport City Council and City Manager on Tuesday night to discuss the tentative fiscal 2013 school department budget. Based on current projections, School Committee Chairman Patrick Kelley said he would not be requesting level funding from the council. Due to the loss of federal funding, growing student enrollment numbers and an unsettled contract between the Teachers' Association of Newport (TAN), along with other contributing factors, the School Committee will request a 2.83 percent increase in funding from the city of $639,515. The total budget request is $13,205 more than last year. The extra funding would be necessary to “continue to offer and provide high quality educational programs,” Kelley…
John H Hedley
12:54 am on Saturday, March 16, 2013
Because the fact that I don't have a dog in this hunt is irrelevant to the message of my post: that the practice of de facto disqualification of internal candidates happens to coincide with the rise of inefficacy, mediocrity and excessive compensation that have been hallmarks of corporate America and public education. But your post suggests to me that it's because of anonymous (but clearly on the… more ›