Removal of Portsmouth Middle School house leaders rankles some

Superintendent said move necessary to move school forward

By Jim McGaw
Posted 3/29/17

A decision to eliminate the three house leader positions at Portsmouth Middle School starting next year was criticized by several people at Tuesday’s School Committee meeting.

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Removal of Portsmouth Middle School house leaders rankles some

Superintendent said move necessary to move school forward

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — A decision to eliminate the three house leader positions at Portsmouth Middle School starting next year was criticized by several people at Tuesday’s School Committee meeting.

The part-time positions were removed from the 2017-2018 school budget by Superintendent Ana Riley, who has created in their place the new position of “dean of student life" to deal with discipline matters. The debate about the house leaders preceded a 4-2 vote by the committee to approve a job description for the new position.

Currently there are three house leaders — one each for grades 6, 7 and 8. While the staff members who currently hold them will still have jobs in the system, several people told the committee that the role of house leader is invaluable to teachers, parents and students alike.

Jayna Lalli, a longtime teacher at the middle school who attended the school as a child, said she can still name every house leader she had as a student.

“In numerous ways the house leaders help not only our students every single day with schedules, lunches, with a problem with a student picking on (them), but also with help guiding us, the teachers,” she said. “I feel it would be a disservice to our schools without them.”

Michael J. Barclay de Tolly, who’s taught music at the middle school for more than 20 years, agreed.

“We all go to house leaders whenever we have any issues with students,” he said, pointing out that teachers like himself see more than 500 students a week.

A parent, Lisa Janssen, said house leaders “are people who are there for the teachers and there for the parents.”

“If so many people find this piece important … why aren’t we looking to support it?” Ms. Janssen asked.

Superintendent responds

Ms. Riley, who came to Portsmouth after working in schools in Massachusetts, said fewer and fewer districts are retaining house leaders.

“I had never heard of a house leader model until I came to Rhode Island,” said Ms. Riley, who assured everyone that the school will still have a strong connection with parents going forward. “We don’t stop calling parents because we don’t have house leaders.” 

She said her decision to eliminate the positions and to add the dean of student life was in the interests of improving student performance.

“We have to look at why other schools have been steadily growing and moving past us and we’ve stayed flat,” the superintendent said. Having a dean of student life will allow the top middle school adminisrators to focus less on discipline and more on the curriculum, she said.

“We have to let our principal and our assistant principal focus on instruction,” Ms. Riley said.

Thomas Kenworthy, assistant superintendent, said the position of dean of student life is very common nowadays in both middle and high schools. The dean will handle all matters “up to the point of suspension,” which would be a determination made by the principal and assistant principal, he said.

“It’s more about creating a culture that prevents discipline issues,” Ms. Riley added.

‘Seems to be working’

During his middle school days, committee member Andrew Kelly sat in the classrooms of some of the teachers who attended Tuesday’s meeting. He favored keeping the house leaders, saying they help keep parents connected to the school.

“I know it’s an old system, but it seems to be working,” he said.

Committee member Allen Shers said he’d prefer to see the district find the money for house leaders as well as a dean of student life. 

Committee member John Wojichowski said he was confident that administrators made the decision because they felt it would improve student achievement. 

“You can’t stay the status quo forever,” he said.

Mr. Shers and Mr. Kelly both voted against approving the dean of student life’s job description, which passed 4-2. Committee Vice-Chairwoman Emily Copeland was absent from the meeting.

Portsmouth School Department, Portsmouth Middle School

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.