District overview
Woonsocket Education Department
How Woonsocket's schools are funded, why three of them are closing, and what changed for students this year.
Where Woonsocket's school money comes from, and why it keeps falling short
Woonsocket is one of Rhode Island's core urban districts. Most of its money comes from the state formula, topped up by a city appropriation the district cannot set. For 2026-27 the state's opening figure cut aid by about $827,000, the first year-over-year fall officials could remember, while contractual obligations added about $2.5 million and transportation and charter tuition about $1 million more. The district asked the city for the maximum 4 percent increase, worth about $825,000; the city funded $150,000 of it. Payments for students at the RISE Prep charter school alone rose from $500,000 to $1.4 million in a year. The district closed 32 positions in May, then recalled 12 teaching posts in June after the General Assembly added just over $2 million and a charter clawback returned about $500,000.
Federal pandemic money is gone and was never replaced
The district received more than $40 million in federal relief, which paid for behavioural interventionists and social workers. With it exhausted, those roles now compete with everything else in the general fund.
Charter growth is a moving target
RISE Prep's upper academy is adding a grade a year and plans a new elementary school in 2028. Each departing student takes formula money with them while the district's buildings and staffing costs stay.
The new school came with a condition
The chair told the committee the state's offer was to build the new Nasuti Elementary School and close three buildings at a 93 percent reimbursement rate, or receive no reimbursement at all.
Reserves are being used as a shock absorber
The committee moved $1.97 million out of the medical pooling reserve in February to cover current-year overages, then put $2.3 million back in May to budget medical costs more aggressively for the coming year.
None of this means the district is standing still. Chronic absence fell districtwide from 49.2 to 39.6 percent in a single year, Hamlet Middle School cut its own rate from 59 to 40 percent, the high school graduation rate rose from 63 to 80 percent, and 35 students exited the multilingual learner programme in June. A Woonsocket senior won a full QuestBridge scholarship to MIT.
Where the district stands
Described as the first year-over-year decrease officials could recall. The General Assembly later added just over $2 million, reported to the committee in June.
A 4 percent rise would have taken local aid from $16,716,373 to $17,540,983. The June 24, 2026 minutes record the $150,000 actually funded.
Early childhood paraprofessionals were halved, so one aide covers two kindergarten classrooms. The recalls followed the June state aid increase.
Chronic absence means missing at least a tenth of the school year. Eight of the district's nine schools now average 90 percent or better daily attendance.
1,410 of about 5,018 students in district buildings, plus 123 students in out-of-district placements, which cost roughly $60,000 to $100,000 each.
RISE is adding a grade a year through grade 12 and plans a new elementary school in 2028, so the cost is expected to keep rising.
The district attributed much of the rise to more accurate student coding rather than to a change in outcomes alone.
Major projects
George T. Nasuti Elementary School
underwayA new elementary school being built with state school construction money, reported on schedule and on budget through 2026. The project drove a water easement request to the City Council, a 188-page traffic study submitted to the state, and a state agreement putting about $1.8 million toward low-voltage wiring that had not been in the original scope. Students from the closing schools will sign the final beam.
- Construction drawings submitted to the state; site fenced and site office opened
- State capital fund agreement approved for low-voltage wiring
- Interior and exterior colour board approved; beam signing planned
- State bond agreement extended past its June 30 expiry
Funding
State school construction bond and pay-as-you-go funds, reported by the chair as carrying a 93 percent reimbursement rate on condition that three existing buildings close
Districtwide grade reconfiguration
approvedApproved unanimously in July 2026. Pothier and the new Nasuti school become pre-kindergarten to grade 4; Harris and Savoie serve kindergarten to grade 4; Hamlet becomes a grade 5-6 upper elementary run on an elementary model; Villa Nova takes grades 7 and 8; the high school is unchanged. A transportation study is examining staggered start times and a possible later high school start.
- Transportation study phase two begins
- First public account of the 5-6 and 7-8 structure
- District states Citizens Elementary will not close next year
- Committee approves the reconfiguration 5-0
Funding
No separate budget; carried within district operations, with transportation consultants engaged for routing
Yondr phone pouch programme
underwayLocking pouches for phones at the middle and high schools, bought in October 2025, governed by a policy adopted in January 2026 and rolled out from the week of March 9, 2026. Staff visited Brockton, Massachusetts and Central Falls first. The rule runs bell to bell with exemptions for medical devices and education plans approved by administrators.
- Committee votes 5-0 to buy the pouches
- Full pouch policy adopted
- Implementation begins at the secondary schools
- Vendor representatives return to observe arrival and dismissal
Funding
District budget, bought early to take a 50 percent discount; students pay $40 for a lost or broken pouch
Chronic absence campaign
underwayA districtwide effort combining school-level attendance teams, incentives, family outreach and a new retention policy with early 'promotion in doubt' warning letters. Woonsocket has had some of Rhode Island's highest chronic absence rates.
- Committee hears absence rates of about 40 percent in the early grades and above 50 percent in middle school
- About 430 promotion-in-doubt letters sent to families
- Retention policy adopted on second passage
- Districtwide chronic absence reported down to 39.6 percent
Funding
Existing staff time and school budgets, with support from state and community partners
Recent news
Built from all 53 agendas and approved minutes the Woonsocket School Committee filed with the Rhode Island Department of State's Open Meetings system between September 2025 and August 2026, read in date order. All were readable and none were duplicates.
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