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Goldson (above), Joyner (below left) at WNHH.
The two Democrats running for seats on the Board of Education came out for eliminating Hillhouse High School’s three separate academies and three separate principals, and returning to one general high school with one principal.
The two candidates — Darnell Goldson and Edward Joyner — made the statements during an episode of WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.”
They said the breaking up of Hillhosue into three academies with different themes isn’t working.
The most recent Board of Education meeting featured students and others complaining about a lack of communication about changes at the school. (Read about that here.) On a separate recent episode of “Dateline New Haven,” Mayor Toni Harp said officials are looking at whether the three-academy system is working; she said the idea is to give students smaller environments in which to learn so they don’t “get lost” in a large school.
Joyner, a former Hillhouse assistant principal, argued that one person needs to be in charge of the entire school.
“We keep experiment on our children, and the children keep failing,” said Goldson, a Hillhouse graduate.
Joyner said he believes in trying out new ideas in the schools, but only those that have been backed by solid research and practice.
The Republicans have two candidates running for the board seats on Sept. 3, as well: William Wynn and James O’Connell.
The status of Hillhouse has prompted repeated debate among Independent readers, one of whom posted the following comment to a recent article: ” It makes absolutely NO SENSE to divide a school into thirds, pay three people to act as principals, split up the faculty and the student body, and create strife, division and confusion in the process of following the superintendent’s educational fad which has not proven to be beneficial to the students and staff. Kids were placed into academies they had no interest in. Hillhouse needs a traditional liberal arts curriculum to prepare them for the future. Right now the curriculum has been so unnecessarily complicated and convoluted that you would need a PhD in education to figure it out! It should not take all that.”
To hear the full episode, click on the above audio file or find the episode in iTunes or any podcast app under “WNHH Community Radio.”