Rhode Island Association of School Principals

Advocacy Information

As the voice of school leaders in the state, The Rhode Island Association of School Principals provides the principal’s perspective on critical issues in contemporary education. Increasingly, RIASP has spoken out on both the state and federal level and has used its presence to inform and influence the people who create the policies that regulate our schools. Issues that are important to principals include:

More authority for principals: If principals are to be held accountable in a fair and meaningful way, they must be given the authority to match their responsibilities. Among other things, that means that principals must be given more say in who gets hired, who gets promoted, who gets assigned to which class, and who gets fired.

Dual discipline system for special education: Without undoing the good that has been done for special needs students over the past thirty years, lawmakers must do away with a separate disciplinary code for IEP students because it is unhealthy for the children and a bureaucratic nightmare for administrators.

Federal funding for principal professional development: Too often principals have been marginalized in discourse about school improvement and professional development funding has not been provided for principals. For example, in 2001 when congress authorized $10 million to target professional development for principals, President Bush later cut that money from his budget. RIASP has urged the state’s congressional delegation to provide funding for the training of principals as a means of ensuring strong instructional leadership in our schools.

Full funding for special education: When special education legislation was first passed, Congress made a commitment to cover 40% of the cost. Thirty years later, the feds provide about one-third of what they promised. With the current budget crises in city and state budgets, now is the time for Congress to live up to its promise. Every senator and congressman should pledge to support a law mandating full special education funding at the 40% level.

Student discipline: Establishing a safe and healthy school is the top priority of every principal, and the creation of a positive and supportive environment for students is clearly the best way to achieve a safe school. For that reason, principals often have little choice when dealing with disruptive students but to suspend that student to preserve a healthy learning enviornment for the majority of students who come to school to learn. Any effort to reduce school suspensions must be matched by new and more effective means of dealing with disruptive students.

Racial discrimination in school discipline: RIASP condemns all forms of discrimination and has worked to improve the educational opportunities of all children. However, RIASP strongly objects to the use of suspension data as a means of indentifying racial bias by administrators and points to research showing high suspension rates to be linked to economic, not racial, factors.