Melissa Bailey File Photo
A top administrator has come out of retirement for a rescue mission at troubled Hillhouse High School.
The Board of Education’s Operations and Finance Committee Monday afternoon discussed approving a contract to hire the retired administrator, Charles Williams (pictured above), to mentor, support and coach Hillhouse administrators for the rest of the school year. Committee members did not vote on the matter; the full board will vote on whether to approve the contract next Monday.
Click here to see the contract.
Even before that vote, Williams started the job at Hillhouse on Oct. 26. The contract sets a maximum salary of $72,500. He’ll receive $500 a day for up to 145 days through the end of the school year.
The committee acted after Mayor Toni Harp — who has taken a more prominent role in school affairs in recent weeks, including becoming Board of Ed president — directed Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries to take action in the wake of widespread complaints about changes at Hillhouse this year. She said she broached the ideas of tapping Williams “to integrate what is going on there. … He’s probably going to be acting like the executive principal. That’s the way I process it.”
“I’m actually asking [Superintendent] Garth Harries to look into Hillhouse to determine what’s going on there, what kinds of problems that exist,” Harp said Monday during her weekly “Mayor Monday” appearance on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program. “Hopefully by the end of the week, we will know what his plans are to address what the concerns are.”
The school currently has four different academies and three different principals.
She said Harries will eventually make a decision on whether the school should have an executive principal instead. She called hiring Williams one step toward that. Williams will be “working with them to integrate it so it feels like one Hillhouse,” she said.
Harp called for “more urgency” in how the district and board solve problems and increase student success.
Lola Garcia-Blocker, the district’s chief of staff, said Williams will fill a necessary gap at the school, since, she claimed, it is understaffed in terms of administrators. Hillhouse is currently separated into four academies, with one transitioning out at the end of the year and one transitioning in this year. Three principals are heading those academies, but only two are supported by assistant principals.
Garcia Blocker is also a director of instruction responsible for providing district-level support for Hillhouse. New hire Gil Traverso is being transitioned into director of instruction of high schools, she said, and is now overseeing magnet high schools.
“When there was no additional support at the school, [board member] Mike Nast suggested we move in this direction,” Garcia-Blocker said.
Starting his career as a New Haven science teacher in 1972, Williams was part of a team of administrators in 2014 called in to support Lincoln Basset’s transition to a turnaround school.
In June 2011, he retired from his position as director of instruction for the district’s high schools, a job that came with a $137,172 salary. He headed a principal evaluation system and was the point person for the New Haven Promise scholarship.
In his role as a leadership coach, he will support Hillhouse’s day-to-day operations, help expand leadership at the school, help with classroom management, assist principals in setting priorities and overcoming obstacles at the school, and push staff and students “outside of their comfort zones to explore new options and solutions to problems,” according to the contract.
“Are they going to name him assistant principal?” asked committee Chair Daisy Gonzalez.
Aliyya Swaby Photo
Garcia-Blocker (pictured) said Williams was not going to be considered for assistant principal and would be hired for his role “just for the remainder of the contract,” a maximum 145 days.
School community members have been struggling to adjust to structural and administrative changes at Hillhouse this year, which the Board of Ed announced just days before school started. The principals — Zakiyyah Baker, Fallon Daniels and David Diah — said the academy system is important to make a large, impersonal school feel more intimate and personalized. They said they have worked to get students and teachers on board.
But some seniors said the transition was decreasing their access to supplies and staff necessary for graduation and college. Teachers reported that they feel isolated from their peers in separate academies, instead of encouraged to collaborate.
Also Monday, Harp and Harries were asked about whether Hillhouse teachers and students have been instructed not to speak to the press in the wake of recent New Haven Independent articles on the school, an impression some have received. Harries said that is a misunderstanding stemming from a discussion on proper protocol for speaking to reporters. “People can certainly speak to the press,” Harp said.
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to Harp discuss the Hillhouse issue Monday on WNHH. The Hillhouse discussion starts at 18:42 and ends at 22:50.