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Middle- schooler Diante Troutman asks mayoral candidate Kermit Carolina a quick follow-up question.
“Mr. Carolina?” 7th-grader Diante Troutman asked the mayoral candidate. “I believe I have something to ask you.”
Diante was asking Kermit Carolina whether he might know his mother from high school. As he asked this question, Carolina had been reading a profile of himself that included answers to some questions Diante had asked him a couple of weeks ago.
The occasion for the follow-up? A release party celebrating the most recent issue of the Celentano Sentinel, the K‑8 school’s newspaper. Click here to read the paper’s new issue, which focuses on New Haven’s hot mayoral race.
The Sentinel’s fourth issue features illuminating profiles of all seven candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor in a Sept. 10 primary. Students asked direct and probing questions about topics that mattered to them most ranging from violence and education to whether pets should be allowed in the classroom.
About 35 Celentano Museum Academy students in grades 2 to 8 meet Tuesdays after school, under the guidance of Co-op High School and Yale College mentors, to produce a newspaper that answers their pressing questions. (In one survey — asking “Do we need uniforms?” — 51 percent of students responded that that would “seriously hurt” self-expression.) Laura Pappano, a journalist who coordinates the program as part of the New Haven Student Journalism project, said that the question most frequently put to candidates was “What are you going to do about gun violence?”
Students used their impressions from interviews to characterize the candidates’ personalities. Justin Elicker, for instance, “seemed like a teacher with his energy and the way he asked reporters a lot of questions.”
The students reported on personal scoop, in addition to political opinions. A profile of Henry Fernandez explains that he “has never run for mayor” — until now — and “enjoys scuba diving.” Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield told students he wanted to be a rocket scientist as a child.
In the paper’s opinion page, student journalists Ranique Gordon and Kevyiana Paige debated about the Mayoral term length. “Are you kidding me?” Gordon wrote. “This election thing is getting out of hand! We have seven different candidates running and it’s hard to make a choice. Then we have to do this in two years again?”
Carolina called students’ level of engagement with civic issues “inspiring.”
The Sentinel has a circulation of about 3,500 all around the city, from Stop & Stop to City Hall to the New Haven Public Library. Students also show the paper to their parents, Pappano explained, which brings their conversations with candidates into their homes.