Melissa Bailey Photo
As Britt Anderson prepares to send her daughter to a reborn East Rock Community Magnet next fall, she has found 40 other families open to making the same leap rather than competing for cherished slots at the neighborhood’s marquee K‑8 school.
Anderson (pictured), who lives on East Rock’s Eld Street, announced that number Monday night, as part of a new campaign to change the neighborhood mentality of “Hooker or Bust.”
That mantra refers to the Worthington Hooker School, a K‑8 neighborhood school split between buildings on Canner Street and Whitney Avenue. Hooker is seen as the holy grail of city public schools: Families have been known to buy homes in East Rock and even stake out the superintendent’s office to get their kids in.
Anderson is focusing on drumming up interest in the neighborhood’s stepchild — the East Rock Community Magnet School on Nash Street. East Rock kids get preference in the magnet lottery there, but interest in the school is low: Enrollment is virtually guaranteed for neighborhood kids, yet only 15 percent of students there hail from East Rock, Anderson said.
East Rock lags behind Hooker not just in perception, but also in student performance. When the city graded all its schools based on test scores and school climate, East Rock scored a middle-performing “Tier II” while Hooker earned a top-performing Tier I.
Newman Architects
A view of the new school from Blake Field.
Anderson and her East Rock Parents group now aim to launch a revival at East Rock coinciding with the construction of a brand new school. The city tore down the old cement “prison” that housed the school, and began building a $45 million light-filled replacement set to open in early 2013. Kids have been commuting to a Hamden swing space while construction is underway.
At a meeting of the East Rock Community Management Team Monday night at the “little Hooker” building on Canner, Anderson unveiled early results of an online survey her group has conducted. The survey, passed around through neighborhood email networks, gauged neighborhood interest in the oft-overlooked school. (You can still take the survey here.)
“Would you be interested in enrolling your children in ERGM if you knew that there was a strong parent network, and strong local community enrollment and involvement in the school?” one survey question asked.
In response, 40 families said yes. Another 34 said maybe. And 11 said no.
Adding up the number of students per family, over 100 students had parents who said they’re open to sending their kids to the school, according the Anderson.
And 31 families said they’d be willing to volunteer at the school or “support more neighborhood involvement” there.
Those responses come from a pool of parents who are almost all (93 percent) from East Rock, Anderson said. Only two currently send their kids to East Rock Magnet. Most will have a chance to do so for many years to come, because they have children in kindergarten or younger.
Anderson called the results “encouraging.”
She said she plans to send her 4‑year-old daughter to kindergarten there in the fall. On Friday, she plans to start volunteering with the kindergarten and first grade to get a feel for the school.
She said she’s working to get as many parents familiar with the school before Feb. 17, the deadline for the magnet lottery. The school will have about 540 seats. Unlike at Hooker, East Rock families won’t have a hard time getting in. There’s a neighborhood preference, Anderson said, and most students currently live outside the neighborhood.
On Nov. 16, she led a group of 20 East Rock parents to the swing space on Leeder Hill Road in Hamden to check out the school. On Monday, she relayed what she learned from a Q & A with Principal Michael Conte. (Some responses are paraphrased below.)
What are the class sizes and teacher/student ratios?
For the first time, the school will be offering a pre‑K. The number of spaces has yet to be decided. Classes are limited to 26 kids in grades K‑2 (with one teacher and at least one aide) and 27 in grades 3 to 8.
What’s the teacher turnover rate?
Very low. “In fact, no teacher has transferred or left if there was a position for them at East Rock.”
What volunteer opportunities are available at the school?
At the moment, only 8 parents volunteer at the school. Some college students volunteer, too.
How many kids live in East Rock?
About 15 percent.
What are the boundaries for the East Rock School neighborhood?
The streets are listed on a spreadsheet here.
Does the school aim to increase the number of students enrolled from the East Rock community?
Yes. “More neighborhood enrollment is desired and welcomed.”
Are East Rock families guaranteed a spot?
East Rock residents who put the school as a first choice get “preferential enrollment” for all vacant spots. There’s also sibling preference. Seats are doled out through the magnet lottery.
Parents also learned about the curriculum at the school, which uses the Comer Method and is introducing Singapore Math. They learned that the population is transient, but that kids who stay at the school for many years perform well on standardized tests.
Anika Singh-Lemar and her son, Sahil.
Anika Singh-Lemar, one of the East Rock moms on the tour, said the visit reinforced her commitment to send her 2‑year-old, Sahil, to the school for kindergarten.
“That’s our neighborhood school. We’re committed to the neighborhood, and we’re committed to the school,” she said.
She and her husband, state Rep. Roland Lemar, have been encouraging other parents to make the same move.
“Part of what I’d like to see is all of the kids on my block at that school,” Singh-Lemar said. Neighborhood schools, where kids walk to class, make for stronger neighborhoods, she argued. “It’s too early to see” if that will happen, she conceded.
Lemar said the teaching quality is just the same as at Hooker. The difference, he contended, is “parental engagement and ownership over the school.”
“We can do that” at East Rock, he declared.
Lemar, who worked on the school design during his time as an East Rock alderman, called the new school the most “important infrastructure development in this neighborhood in the next 50 years.”
In a discussion by the management team Monday night, Debbie Rossi pointed to the school’s negative reputation. She said when she looked at the school for her own children 14 years ago, the perception was that East Rock was “a dumping ground” for students with disabilities and English-language learners.
Anderson said the district has since relocated the English as a Second Language program to Fair Haven. The school does have a higher-than-average number of students with disabilities: It has 16 percent, compared to 7 percent at Hooker and 12 percent district-wide.
Another neighbor asked if it’s possible to turn East Rock Magnet into a neighborhood school.
It’s possible — warned Kevin McCarthy, a legislative aide at the Capitol who chairs the management team — but “the state would want its money back.”
The state spent $39 million on the school with money earmarked for magnet schools, Lemar said. But, he offered, the school could effectively become a neighborhood school if enough neighbors simply sign their kids up.
If that happens, it will be a boon not just for the school, but for the neighborhood, Lemar and Anderson argued.
Anderson said one of her neighbors left Eld Street just to move into the part of East Rock that lies inside the Hooker school boundaries.
“It was a loss for the neighborhood,” she said. Good neighborhood schools retain homeowners and boost property values, she noted.
She said convincing the first group of East Rockers to commit to the school is the hardest part. “People haven’t gone there because people they know didn’t go there,” she said. “Nobody wants to be the groundbreaker.”
She said so far, she has found a handful of families who’ve committed to sending their kids to kindergarten next year.
Anderson remained optimistic about finding more local kids to enroll at what will be the newest school facility in the city.
“I can envision in three years, it will be a school that’s very hard to get into.”