Departing Schools Chief Raiche Lauded for Service
By Talia Buford; Journal Staff Writer
WEST WARWICK – Even though Supt. David P. Raiche still has a little more than a month left before he leaves to assume the superintent’s post in Plainville, Mass., administrators took time to celebrate Raiche and his achievements during Tuesday’s School Committee meeting, his last in West Warwick.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to work here for the last 32 years,” Raiche said. “Now, I’ll get the best of both worlds: I get to live here and see the kids grow up and take care of me, and I get to go back to what I started with – small kids.”
In December, he accepted the superintendency in Plainville, which has an enrollment of 700 students in two elementary schools.
Raiche began his career in West Warwick more than three decades ago as a long-term substitute teacher. He worked as an elementary school teacher for eight years, and then spent four years as a secondary school teacher. He served as an elementary and middle school principal for 13 years before being promoted to assistant superintendent. Raiche has been superintendent since 2000.
“He’s a wonderful child advocate and I’m proud and honored to have served as a member of his leadership team,” said Donna Peluso, principal of Horgan Elementary School. “I will miss him greatly.”
The School Committee is assembling a search panel to screen candidates to succeed Raiche, and School Committee Chairman Daniel T. Burns Jr. said he expects the panel to be formed by the first week of March. The board will include administrators, including the high school principal and the special-education director, as well as eight or nine community members, Burns said.
The department began advertising the position shortly after Raiche accepted the job in Plainville. Burns said the committee will have eight candidates, from Rhode Island and elsewhere, to evaluate.
“We had a cutoff date, but if we’re not satisfied with the candidates, we’re not locked into making a decision,” Burns said. “We’re not looking for someone to fill a seat. We want to make sure the per son is qualified to run the school district.”
In the meantime, James DiPrete, chairman of the state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education and acting superintendent of the Exeter-West Greenwich school district, will serve as the interim West Warwick superintendent. DiPrete will assume those duties on April 1 and stay on through the remainder of the school year, Burns said. The new superintendent will be appointed over the summer and be in place by the beginning of the fall semester.
Raiche’s last day in West Warwick is March 31.
DiPrete, a retired Coventry principal, had served as interim superintendent in West Warwick shortly before Raiche was appointed to fill the position, Burns recalled.
In other business at Tuesday’s board meeting, the schools’ director of administration, Michael R. Petrarca, submitted calculations of how much the district spent per pupil last year. But, Petrarca said, the numbers can be misleading.
Per-pupil spending is calculated three ways, he said. The first calculation takes the district’s total expenditures and divides it by enrollment. That calculation – which, for West Warwick, produced a figure of $14,058 – is the one most commonly used.
The second calculation subtracts the amount the district pays in special-education tuitions. That deduction decreases West Warwick’s per pupil spending to $13,540. Finally, if teachers’ retirement benefits and capital projects are deducted from the amount, the end figure – $12,438 – is a more accurate reflection of what the town really spends on each student, Petrarca said.
“It makes it tough to compare districts to districts,” he said. “We have the eighth-highest per-pupil spending in the state, but we don’t know where we rank in the [other calculations].”
The School Department will hold the first in a series of budget review workshops on Feb. 27 in Greenbush Elementary School. Sessions will also be held on March 6 at Horgan; on March 22 at Maisie E. Quinn Elementary School, and on March 27 at Wakefield Hills Elementary School. All of the workshops will begin at 6:30 p.m.
“We want input, we want ideas,” Burns said. “We want people to ask questions during the budget workshop rather than wait until the Financial Town Meeting. [These workshops] are an opportunity for residents to find out where their tax dollars are going.”
tbuford@projo.com / (401) 277-7378
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