Seven Years Under the State, Three Months of Infighting: Providence School Board Member Demands the Superintendent Resign

What happened

On Tuesday, Oct. 6, longtime Providence School Board member Night Jean Muhingabo called on Superintendent Dr. Javier Montañez to step down “effective immediately,” GoLocalProv reported. Muhingabo cited a 15-page letter said to come from “Sixteen Current Administrators of the Providence Public School District,” which describes what its authors call “a troubling pattern of retaliation against employees who challenge senior leadership”: concerns get documented, an investigation is opened, and the employee ends up on leave, disciplined, or recommended for termination.

Muhingabo also pointed to a confidential letter he said the district’s Chief of Human Resources sent the board after she was placed on administrative leave the previous Wednesday. He asked the board to authorize a fully independent investigation into allegations of “retaliation, discrimination, racism, and an overall toxic work environment,” and asked Montañez to put Deputy Superintendent Paula Dillon on leave while it runs. His list of complaints against the superintendent goes beyond the letters: insubordination, undermining board governance, falsification of documents, his handling of a graduation-inflation controversy, and “continuing to take direction from the Commissioner of Education following the return to local control.”

Board President Ty’Relle Stephens told GoLocal he isn’t calling for Montañez to resign but said the allegations need to be investigated. The district’s communications office didn’t respond to GoLocal.

This is the second act of a fight that broke into the open last month. The district returned to city control this summer after nearly seven years of state oversight. In September, NBC 10 and The Boston Globe reported that six of the board’s 10 members wanted Stephens out as president. At the Sept. 23 board meeting, three departing senior administrators—Deputy Superintendent of Operations Zachary Scott, Dillon, and Chief of Staff Lisa DiMartino—each said Stephens’ leadership was a major reason they were leaving. Dillon cited a request for “a $10,000 charge card during a period of significant financial constraint.” DiMartino said the board’s chief legal counsel position was pitched as a cost saver but has added about $100,000 to the budget. Stephens apologized for the distraction, said he would publish a written response with emails and records, and didn’t step down. Muhingabo said at that meeting that he still supported Stephens.

Update (Oct 19, 2026)

RIDE has ruled the board majority can remove its president. According to The Boston Globe’s Dan McGowan, the Rhode Island Department of Education ruled in a decision issued Sunday, Oct. 18, that a majority of the Providence School Board can remove President Ty’Relle Stephens before his term expires.

How it got there. Vice President Anjel Newmann filed a complaint with the state last month. She and five other members had asked Stephens to put a motion for his removal on a meeting agenda, and Stephens, who controls the agenda as president, refused. At the Sept. 23 meeting, Uprise RI reported, Newmann said: “He would not do it. We have a right to do that.”

The legal question. Stephens believes the city charter guarantees him a one-year term as president. Per the Globe, state law says school board presidents serve “at the pleasure” of the board, and the state found Stephens violated Newmann’s rights by refusing to put the removal motion on the agenda.

The catch: enforcement. The Globe reports that the decision says the state’s usual methods of enforcing a ruling “would only work against the interests of innocent parties.” In other words, RIDE won’t withhold education aid over the dispute. If more action is needed to get Stephens to comply, the vice president can go to Superior Court. Stephens has called the effort to oust him a vendetta by Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green, the Globe reports.

Next: The board’s next meeting is Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 5:30 p.m.

Update (Oct 22, 2026): Board Postpones the Removal Vote to Nov. 18 and Commits to a ‘Restorative Circle’

No vote. The Providence School Board met Wednesday, Oct. 21, with a motion to remove President Ty’Relle Stephens on the agenda, but it did not vote on removing him. According to The Providence Journal, the board spent three hours in closed session and reopened its public session at 12:05 a.m., more than six hours after it first convened. ProJo reports the approved motion reads: “Motion to postpone item 8.3 until the next regular board meeting on Nov. 18, 2026 until the Board can open up the bylaws to restructure leadership roles and responsibilities with a commitment to a restorative circle with the entire Board led by an official restorative practitioner to repair the harm.” Item 8.3 was the removal motion. ProJo also reports it was the longest board meeting several members said they could remember.

The city has appealed. NBC 10 reported Wednesday that the city has already appealed RIDE’s ruling that the board majority can remove Stephens.

A judge let RIDE’s review go forward. According to RIDE spokesperson Victor Morente, as reported by WPRI, a court justice denied the city’s request to halt RIDE’s review, which allowed the administrative proceeding to continue.

Before the meeting, Stephens accused the commissioner of interference. In a letter to the community Monday, as quoted by WPRI, Stephens wrote: “What I have witnessed is, in my view, a deeply troubling pattern of interference, including actions that appear designed to undermine my leadership, obstruct local governance, and manufacture unnecessary division among my colleagues.” He claimed that three senior district leaders whose departures were blamed on him then took jobs at RIDE. He also argued that Commissioner Infante-Green relied on “a statute dating back to the 1890s” even though Providence operates under a Home Rule Charter. RIDE’s Morente responded that the commissioner’s directive “does not weigh in on who should lead the Providence School Board,” and wrote: “The Commissioner concluded that Rhode Island law permits a majority of Board members to seek the removal of Board officers who serve ‘at the pleasure’ of the Board and further determined that President Stephens violated the rights of Board members under state law when he refused to place the requested motion on a Board agenda.”

The Globe’s account. The Boston Globe’s Dan McGowan also reports that the board “backed away from an effort to oust President Ty’Relle Stephens during an hours-long meeting Wednesday night.” According to the Globe:

• The board has decided to bring in a “certified restorative practitioner to repair the harm that has been caused,” and leadership could be restructured in the coming weeks.
• Stephens “now appears likely to remain board president through early next year, when two new members are appointed by the incoming mayor.”
• The city’s Superior Court case against RIDE over the removal ruling is “more a procedural question about the city charter versus state law than an endorsement of Stephens, and the question may be moot now anyway.”
• In a statement Monday, Stephens wrote: “And if I were in my colleagues’ position, I would think long and hard about this decision, because given the choice, I would much rather deal with Ty’Relle Stephens, the President, than Ty’Relle Stephens, the Board member.”