PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A majority of the Providence School Board has the power to remove its president before his term runs out, the Rhode Island Department of Education has decided, setting up a possible showdown when the board meets again Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.
The decision came in response to a complaint from Vice President Anjel Newmann. She and five other members had asked board President Ty’Relle Stephens to put a motion calling for his own removal on a meeting agenda, and he declined, pointing to his authority as president to set what the board takes up.
State officials sided with Newmann, finding that refusing to list the motion violated her rights as a board member. Under state law, a school board president serves at the will of the board. Stephens has argued the city charter entitles him to a full one-year term, and the city solicitor had found no charter path for removing him during that fixed term.
There is a limit to what the state will do. Its normal enforcement tools, such as holding back education aid, would end up hurting people who have nothing to do with the dispute, so the decision points Newmann toward Superior Court if Stephens still will not comply.
Stephens has cast the campaign against him as a personal grudge held by the state’s top education official, Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, and says it is driven by her.
The board itself is still new in its current form. In 2022, city voters backed a home-rule change to the charter that created a mix of five elected members and five members appointed by the mayor, and that board first met in January 2025.
The fight also comes months after the state ended its takeover of Providence Public Schools. The state education council voted on May 27 to return control to city leaders and the board as of July 1, closing out an intervention that began in 2019. Wednesday’s agenda also carries a $110 million plan to merge school facilities.
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