The Providence Public School District has a new board. Five won election or re-election in November, and five were appointed by Mayor Brett Smiley. They recently chose Ty’Relle Stephens as the new president, and Anjel Newmann as vice president.
At 23, Ty’Relle Stephens is the youngest president in the history of the Providence school board. He was appointed to the board in 2019 by former Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza and was re-elected last year.
Anjel Newmann is a co-executive director of AS220, a nonprofit community arts center in Providence. She was appointed last month to the school board by Providence Mayor Brett Smiley.
Interview highlights
Ty’Relle Stephens on his journey to becoming a Providence school board member
Stephens: I really had gotten involved back when I was in high school with my own education. I got invited to a couple of the meetings that teachers had to go to with the administration. … A year and a half after I had graduated from high school back in 2019 the opportunity was, in fact, presented to me. … I was a student, and coming from that youth perspective truly made an impact on the former administration, which was former Mayor Jorge Elorza’s administration. Anjel Newmann, school board appointee and vice-president, on the experience she brings to the role
Newmann: Not only do I come to this board with the perspective of being a parent … I also come to this work leading AS220, an arts organization in Providence. Through our work with the Rhode Island Training School, which is the youth prison here in Rhode Island, and also other students who have gone through DCYF, the Department of Children, Youth and Families, I’ve had the honor and opportunity to work with students who schools have failed; young people who have dropped out or have been pushed out; young people who have had negative experiences with teachers, SROs, with our own district and districts from all over Rhode Island.
I was a teen parent myself, and was pushed out of a high school, not Providence, a different district, but I just think about what it would have meant for that high school to have young parents in mind, and so that way I wouldn’t have been pushed out at that point. I want to make sure that’s possible for all of our students.
On the need for Providence to regain control of the city’s school district:
Newmann: I feel strongly that we need our schools back as soon as possible. The board needs to be able to be involved in what schools are going to be closing and what schools are going to be opening. We need to be able to have the autonomy that the law gives us, to be accountable to our community.
Stephens: I’ve been on the board going on five years, and I was asking in year two for the schools to return back to local control. … The mayor has, in fact, had listening sessions across Providence. He’s been working on this. There were board members in the past that was a part of the plan. But I think now a plan is being developed. I believe it’s going to be released in April. It’s going to be our job as a board to make sure we provide as much input as possible to make sure that when the plan is released, it’s a solid plan, and that the plan would be able to be sort of likable in the state legislature to get the schools back.
On what can be done to improve Providence Public Schools:
Newmann: Right now, we need to commit to making sure that we’re hiring teachers who have the lived realities and experiences of the students that they serve. I think that students learn better when they can relate to the folks who are teaching them, and not only about academics but also about life – more importantly, about life – about career, about what to do when you’re in a tough situation with your family or the law. We need educators who understand the communities where our students hail from.
Stephens: We have to change adult behaviors. The John Hopkins Report clearly stated that we had a governance issue. People didn’t know who to report to, who was the boss, who the individual was that actually was the people running the system. There was always conflicting information. So we have to change those adult behaviors. There has to be a clear framework that explicitly says that this is going to be the governance structure that will not be a conflict between government entities. We have to be able to change that.
This interview was conducted by The Public’s Radio.
