Susan Lusi’s career has given her nearly every possible perspective on Rhode Island public education – on top of working in academia, the state education department, private consulting and two school districts, she also has two children who have gone to public schools in the state.
Lusi is holding the interim superintendent position at the Providence Public School District for one year while the school board and Mayor Angel Taveras search for a permanent superintendent for the 22,000-student district.
Over the next several months, she plans to get to know the community through open meetings and smaller gatherings with school-based parent advisory committees.
PBN: How has the Providence Public School District changed since you last worked here in 2003?
LUSI: Names and faces have changed. The population of students is actually somewhat smaller. I think we were at about 27,000 … when I was here last time. We are further along in efforts to have a curriculum. … Just in this immediate past year, there were school closings and a number of teachers were let go. … I’m aware that I need to work on pulling people together and improving morale as we move forward.
PBN: Did you get any advice from outgoing superintendent Tom Brady?
LUSI: I don’t know that he gave me advice, but he was very helpful and forthcoming in sharing his thinking about the district.
PBN: What is the most pressing issue facing the district right now?
LUSI: Our absolute top priority is opening schools in a way that instills confidence in parents, teachers, staff and students. And that’s goal one, first and foremost.
PBN: What preparations remain to be done before the school year begins?
LUSI: School opens August 30. Because of the school closings, there are a number of classroom moves. Things are packed up, but it’s now making sure everything gets moved to the right place.
PBN: What does it consist of to turn a middle school into an elementary school?
LUSI: Often when you look at construction specs for schools, kindergartens for example and elementary classrooms, it’s recommended that there’s more space than for kids in other grades. When you go into a kindergarten, for example, there are lots of different areas of the classroom where kids are doing different activities.
PBN: What is the district’s plan for finding positions for teachers who still have not been placed?
LUSI: We are still working on placing them, looking at openings and people’s areas of certification. And we are trying to have that number [of teachers who are not rehired] be as small as possible.
PBN: In addition to the four schools that were named as failing in January 2010, another four were named as failing in March. What is your plan?
LUSI: That list [of failing schools] is being re-looked at. The data’s being rerun.
PBN: How has your experience working in the state education department affected your perspective at the district level?
LUSI: It helps me understand that the perspectives are very different depending on where you sit. It also helps me understand who I have to reach out to and what I need to ask from the state agency to support us.
PBN: How will the new state funding formula impact Providence?
LUSI: It should help us because we are supposed to get more funding. [But] even if you’re getting more money in some sense, there may still be a gap between revenue and what we really need to have to educate kids well. So that’s what I have to look at.
LUSI: Transportation is a priority, because we have to get kids to school. By virtue of legal requirements, but also if you want to educate children, clearly you have to get them to the building. I know the state is working on providing transportation more through the state, and I believe they have a long-term goal of potentially taking over those costs.
There were people in the community I was in before who would look at the per-student amount [in the state funding formula] and think, “That’s what we should be able to educate our kids for.” But it was misleading [because] things like transportation … are not included.
PBN: The chief academic officer and chief of staff both left the district for new positions. Have they been replaced?
LUSI: We have an acting chief academic officer, [but] we do not have a chief of staff right now.
PBN: What are your major goals for the year?
LUSI: The first goal is opening schools well. … The second goal is, in that process and beyond, to really pull people in this system back together into a highly functioning team or set of teams. The third goal is, we really need in this district a strategic plan. A plan that shows our staff and our community and our board and our city what our goals and priorities are and what the timelines are by which we hope to achieve them – recognizing that there are numerous things we need to do that won’t all be accomplished in a year, but at least setting out a roadmap for that process. •
INTERVIEW
Susan Lusi
POSITION: Interim superintendent, Providence Public School District
BACKGROUND: Lusi served as superintendent of the Portsmouth School District from 2005 to 2011 after working as a consultant. She worked as chief of staff in the Providence Public School District from 2001 to 2003 and held previous positions at the R.I. Department of Education and Brown University.
EDUCATION: B.A. in economics and M.A. in teaching from Brown University in 1985, master’s degree and PhD in public policy from Harvard University in 1991 and 1994, respectively. Lusi attended the Broad Superintendents Academy in 2003.
FIRST JOB: Research assistant and teaching fellow for former Brown professor of education Theodore Sizer
RESIDENCE: East Greenwich
AGE: 48
