Mission
The Rhode Island Education Collective’s mission is to ensure that every Rhode Island child can go to a great public school.
Vision
20 Years From Now
Twenty years from now, Rhode Island Education Collective’s work of empowering community members to foster innovation will have produced significant improvements in educational outcomes for students. Every child in Rhode Island – and especially our capital city of Providence – will have the opportunity to attend a high-quality public school that meets their unique needs. And a coalition of leaders from our state’s highest-need communities will have the power, access, and resources to continue advancing educational opportunities for all children and families.
What Guides Us
Our Values
Our values guide how we work, how we collaborate, and how we create better educational opportunities for every student in Rhode Island.
Students First
We prioritize students' needs, interests, and aspirations in every decision we make.
Equity
We strive to eliminate barriers to education, working against racism in all its forms to give all children access to equitable learning resources and experiences.
Collaboration
We co-create with students, families, educators, and community members, relying on their experiences and perspectives to inform solutions that achieve the best outcomes for students.
Meet Our Team
Meet the people working alongside students, families, educators, and communities to strengthen public education across Rhode Island.
Staff
Board of Directors
Get to know more about Victor and his vision
Two Years of the Collective
As the Collective turns two, our founder and CEO Victor Capellan takes time to reflect, celebrate, and talk about what's to come.
Happy birthday to Rhode Island Education Collective! As we celebrate this milestone, let's start by looking back: What inspired Victor to create the Collective?
“The Collective was a dream of mine for a long time. I can't believe it's a toddler now.”
Before launching the Collective, Victor spent 25 years working inside the public school system. During that time, he saw the promise of public school education, but also recognized that its opportunities were not available to all students.
As Superintendent of Schools in Central Falls, a report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that Rhode Island's Latino students ranked last in the country in opportunity to succeed.
As Victor wrote in the Providence Journal at the time, the uncomfortable reality was that not enough was being done to change that.
“Every day I was determined to do more, to press harder, to fight for all of our kids.”
As a member of the Coalition of Urban Superintendents and Charter School Leaders, Victor pushed for critical reforms, including expanding the school day and school year. Read more in the Providence Journal's coverage of urban educators' efforts.
Victor knew that lasting change required people to work together, especially people who don't usually work together. That belief planted the seed for the Collective.
A Conversation About the Work
Founder & CEO Victor Capellan reflects on the vision, challenges, community, and future of the Rhode Island Education Collective.
Victor: To bring together everyone who has a stake in our schools and make it possible for them to work together to create the change our students need. Students, families, educators, school leaders, community members, politicians, and business leaders. We need everyone at the table.
I wanted us to challenge what wasn’t working and test the limits of what was possible. For years, our education system has failed too many of our children, especially in underserved communities. It was time to do something different.
Yes, unfortunately and fortunately.
We knew that creating meaningful change would be hard and that those invested in the status quo would push back. Unfortunately, that has proven very true. We felt it full force when we advocated for the Providence City Council to lease a vacant school building to a high-performing charter public school, which would share the space with a traditional public school. It would have been a win for families, students, and taxpayers. But the Council put politics before kids and rejected the plan.
Fortunately, we also knew that our community would show up to advocate for our kids, and they have done that time and time again over the past two years. We saw this when we created proposals for two new, much-needed charter public schools: New England Technical Academy (NETA), an early-college CTE high school focused on high-demand fields, and De La Comunidad Bilingual School (DLC-B), a K-12 dual-language, full-service community school. More than 3,500 letters of support poured in and over 50 industry and community organizations gave their endorsement. While NETA was rejected, DLC-B was approved, showing what is possible when families lead and when the system listens. But that approval was later undermined by a charter school moratorium, preventing the school from moving forward.
I'm most proud that people who once felt like education decisions happened to them are realizing they can help shape those decisions. We've seen parents testify for the first time, educators bring forward ideas for their classrooms, community organizations come together around new schools, and thousands of Rhode Islanders speak up for children. That's what a movement looks like.
We ask what can be better. We bring unlikely people together. And we build solutions that put students and families first. Every time more people step forward with their voices, ideas, and experiences, we’re reminded that lasting change happens when communities come together for children.
Victor: We’re going to keep doing what we came here to do: convening community members, educators, and school leaders to listen, learn, and collaborate; investing in classroom initiatives, programs, and partners that support students and families.
Every challenge reminds us why this work matters—and makes us more determined to keep building a system that puts students and families first.
Victor: For our community to keep showing up. And I know they will. Over the past two years, thousands of people have passionately advocated for our kids: making calls, sending emails, testifying, talking to their neighbors, and standing with us in the unwavering belief that every child in our state deserves access to a great education.
Two years in, we know this much: when communities come together for kids, change is possible.
Get Involved
Your voice matters! There is a place for everyone who is connected to our schools at the Rhode Island
Education Collective. Get involved today and help us create a brighter, more equitable future for students in
our state.
Email: Info@RIEducationcollective.org
Rhode Island Education Collective
225 Dyer Street, 2nd Floor
Providence, RI 02903
