Who will run Johnston schools? Interviews underway

Public interviews began on Monday for candidates looking to succeed Bernard DiLullo as superintendent of Johnston Public Schools. After the last interview concludes next Monday, a subcommittee will decide whether to conduct another round of interviews before recommending a final candidate to the full School Committee.

Succeeding DiLullo, who retired this week after 15 years as superintendent, will be no small feat. The leadership transition also comes at a challenging time for the School Department. After recently accepting a $5.4-million bailout from the town’s reserve fund to erase its fiscal year budget deficit, the department now faces further negotiation with the Town Council to draft a corrective action plan to prevent future deficits.

The new superintendent will also have to clear several hurdles to district success. Many local students attend high school in other districts to access more robust career and technical education programs than are offered at Johnston Senior High School, and the out-of-district tuition has placed a significant strain on the School Department’s finances. Mounting costs for special education and multilingual learners programs have also been a source of financial trouble in recent years.

Despite the daunting circumstances, Director of Human Resources Robert Parker estimates that about 20 applicants threw their hats in the ring when the job posting went online a few weeks ago, including on the Rhode Island Department of Education website. Parker narrowed the applicant pool down to less than half. Seven candidates were scheduled to interview at time of publishing, though that is subject to change.

School Committee Vice Chair Susan Mansolillo didn’t sugarcoat things on Monday when a candidate asked what the committee was looking for in a superintendent.

“We’re really bleeding students out of our district,” she said. “We need to retain students … we’re looking for someone to expand that and grow that.” She added, “We’re looking for someone to come and have a new look at our budget and how we do things, how we spend things.”

Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr., who has publicly criticized DiLullo’s leadership, said on Tuesday that he hopes the next superintendent focuses on expanding the career and technical education program at the high school above all else.

“I don’t know how anyone could not say CTE is the top priority when a third of your students is going out of district for CTE,” Polisena said.

“I think that they need to get a handle on special education,” he added. With a better program in place, “we could be the ones taking special-education students from other districts and having other districts pay us.”

In addition to fielding general questions about their career histories and accomplishments in education, candidates are also being asked during hour-long interviews how they would approach problems specific to the Johnston School Department. Superintendent hopefuls must share how they would improve the high school’s career and technical opportunities, as well as how they’d balance fiscal responsibility with student needs when it comes to budgeting.

On Monday afternoon, four candidates appeared before the subcommittee for interviews: Thomas Aubin, outgoing superintendent of Westport Community Schools in Massachusetts; Michael Whaley, assistant superintendent of West Warwick Public Schools; Marie-Elena Ahern, director of curriculum at Exeter-West Greenwich Public Schools; and Jeffrey Guiot, assistant superintendent of Killingly Public Schools in Connecticut.

On Wednesday evening, two more candidates were scheduled to be interviewed. Next Monday, the subcommittee is scheduled to interview one more candidate. The SunRise is withholding the names of these last three candidates because the interview process requires candidates to remain anonymous until they appear for their public interviews, and their attendance could not be confirmed before deadline.

Once the subcommittee has selected a candidate, the new superintendent may be recommended and confirmed in a public meeting of the full School Committee.