PROVIDENCE – The Northern Rhode Island Collaborative board of superintendents on April 25 voted to formulate a dissolution plan, essentially ending the 13-school district collaboration at the end of the school year after 36 years as a corporation.
Bernard DiLullo, the Johnston school superintendent who chairs the collaborative’s board, told Providence Business News in an email Thursday the dissolution plan was approved earlier in the week in response to the participating districts submitting withdrawal notices to both the board and the R.I. Department of Education back on Dec. 31, 2022. Those notices, DiLullo said, indicated they would withdraw from the collaborative by June 30. Therefore, the collaborative “could no longer exist” under the current established model.
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The collaborative was first formed in 1987 to provide special education programs and educational services to partner school districts and community partners throughout northern Rhode Island. DiLullo said that over the years, the need for the collaborative’s by school districts was “lessened” because districts had created their own programs.
DiLullo said that while there was still a need for specialized programming by the collaborative and its staff, there were years where the collaborative “had financial struggles as the tuition collected did not cover the costs of operations” due to rising operational costs. The collaborative, DiLullo said, did recently become financially sound thanks to efforts from Executive Director Georgia Fortunato and top collaborative administrators.
However, he said the districts exercised their right to end their participation with the collaborative “to avoid incurring further and long-term debt as costs of operation continue to rise, which ultimately would fall on all participating districts and their municipalities.”
As a result of the dissolution, 71 staff members were laid off, DiLullo said, and 77 students are to be impacted. Each school district that withdrew from the collaborative will be responsible for providing the same level of service “either through another program or within their own district for these students,” DiLullo said.
DiLullo also said the dissolution plan is being implemented to address various collaborative matters, such as outstanding contracts, leases and other encumbrances. He also noted that Fortunato has made arrangements to adjust the school’s schedule so that the laid-off staffers can attend RIDE’s statewide job fair on May 7-8 at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick in Warwick.
“Many districts are in need of the services these staff members have provided for our students and they will be in demand because of the specialized skills they have developed, and the difficulty districts have had in filling specialized positions,” DiLullo said.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
