(Updated) After hours of public wrangling, New Haven’s schools chief gave angry parents more than they asked for.
In a remarkable example of parents and other citizens engaging school officials, Organizer Nilda Aponte and other members of the parents advocacy group Teach Our Children (TOC) upped the ante in their struggle to influence key disciplinary and recess policies at the Board of Ed (BOE).
They invited Superintendent Dr. Reginald Mayo to take a chair and answer, in person, long-simmering questions on suspension and recess at the community room at the central library Saturday morning.
Mayo didn’t show up, and his chair remained empty… at first.
After a dramatic appearance and two hours of negotiation, Mayo offered TOC a coveted regular monthly meeting with him, tensions diminished, but only barely.
Initially Mayo had said he was unavailable and had sent surrogates — a half dozen principals and his chief of staff, Leida Pacini. Their “We’re hear to listen and bring your concerns to Dr. Mayo” remarks, however, only seemed to fuel a crescendo of frustration that literally drove them from the room.
Shortly afterwards, when Mayo was notified that organizers had chartered a bus to drive the entire noisy gathering to his front lawn unless the audience was granted, the superintendent suddenly arrived some half-hour after the conclave had begun.
A spokeswoman Monday said the superintendent asserted that hearing of a charter bus was not the reason he attended. All along, he had told the organizers, he said, his calendar didn’t permit him to attend. But if he could break a previously scheduled appointment short, he would, and he would attend. That’s what he did, he said, not under pressure of a charter bus arriving on his lot.
The meeting was contentious. TOC leaders publicly made a half-dozen demands of the superintendent, on issues which parents felt the Board of Ed has been slow to respond or inconsistent.
These included a 20-minute recess for all K‑5 schools, a more strenuous effort to end bullying, and documentation of all suspensions, and a promise that all suspended kids will have access to their homework.
Mayo hardly said yes in all instances, but he offered something that was perhaps TOC’s most significant victory thus far: a promise to meet once a month with TOC leaders on all these issues.
At the end of the meeting, Mayo and TOC leaders such as Natasha Smith and Nilda Aponte kissed; it was unclear whether they had also made up.
Mayo was skeptical as to how many of the people who thronged the community room actually had kids in the NHPS. He called for a raising of hands, and perhaps 15 out of a hundred people did. Nevertheless, TOC leader Nilda Aponte said, Mayo’s assessment was wrong.
He took the issues seriously enough to grant the monthly audience, a level of access that is quite unusual. TOC leaders had actually demanded only that he meet with them in two weeks to assess how he acted on his promises. “So I suggested a monthly meeting, not a one-timer in two weeks. I gave them more than they asked for,” Mayo said. Mayo said that on the ride over he had been thinking of offering TOC a monthly meeting.
He had refused to meet in two weeks to give TOC a progress report because, he said, many of the group’s demands were already being fulfilled by BOE policy. For example, documentation of suspensions is required by state law and is being done, he said.
To the demand that parents who volunteer to work at their schools be responded to in a timely manner, he committed to the principal responding within a week.
TOC parents alleged that potential parent volunteers don’t hear back for weeks, months, if ever. Involving more parents in the lives of their children is as much an aim of TOC as holding the BOE’s feet to the fire.
As to the demand for recess for all K‑5 schools, Mayo said that his Take Ten Program, a stand-by-your chair exercise program, has had to substitute because with the No Child Left Behind demands, there is not enough time in the day to make the commitment.
Principal Leroy Williams from Roberto Clemente said if he gave his kids recess, he’d have to take time away from reading or math, and his kids are already two or three years behind in academics.
“If some schools can do it,” countered Aponte, “why can’t they all?”
Mayo replied by saying the schools that do it are the magnet schools, which have more supervisory staff. Teachers need time off. Gina Wells, the principal at John Daniels Schools, said she had gathered a crew of some 20 parent volunteers to supervise a part of lunch, thus turning it into recess, at no additional cost.
Yet another demand was that the BOE ensure that individualized educational programs, or IEPs, of kids with specialized learning problems be in place. Mayo said they are, and that kids get the specialized attention they need.
Rosa Gonzales, (pictured) said her son had been suspended seven days in December in his new school Ross Woodward, and often for offenses such as throwing a piece of paper, which she does not understand.
“I feel destroyed by this,” she said.
“It’s not that there are not good administrators,” said Conte/West and Cross parent Kelly Moye. “It’s just that in one school your kid is kicked out for wearing his hat askew, and in another not. Also, kindergarteners are being kicked out. That never happened before.”
Another key demand of the group was that every suspended child have access to his homework. Mayo agreed to this.
A BOE committee headed by Charles Williams, the head of the high schools, has been trying to fashion a more consistent disciplinary policy. TOC has had some input, according to the BOE spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan DeCarlo. TOC members said they are tired of the slow pace of the BOE, meeting after meeting, in addressing issues.
“We need to speak on their behalfs, so they can see the future,” said Nilda Aponte, in a dramatic demonstration with her daughter Selinet. While both sides assert they share the same aims and love of children in their charge, TOC suggests by their style and tactics that Mayo does not share their sense of urgency.
For his part, Mayo repeatedly asserted that TOC is spawning misperceptions and, moreover, that the system’s incremental gains should be more appreciated.
Mayo oftentimes during the meeting, which was contentious, but eventually defused, said he felt disrespected by the tone of the parents. Natasha Smith (pictured on the right, with Wilbur Cross Principal Rose Coggins) said, alas, many parents felt precisely that way in their dealings with principals and administrators.
“There’s a procedure,” Mayo countered, “if a parent isn’t getting satisfaction. We need to follow procedures and not yell at each other. We need to work together.”
The day saw a clash of styles so pronounced that beloved principal Gina Wells at first characterized the meeting as an “ambush.” There were also heartfelt cries from the principals, especially Coop High School’s Dolores Garcia Blocker, that there was much misinformation on the part of parents. “I’m not only a principal,” she said, “but also a mother of child at Vincent Mauro. I think all BOE administrators and teachers with parents in the school should join your organization, to help correct misperceptions.”
Still, she admitted, that the vital classroom life and parental involvement she described at her child’s first grade class at Vincent Mauro had in all too many cases, particularly with young black men, disappeared by the time the same kids were in high school. “We are not preparing our young people for real competition either to get into Southern and, even less, at being equipped to compete internationally.”
Mayo said he was being responsive to the TOC group but reiterated his view that TOC is not representative of the experiences of the 18,000 students and their parents in the system. “For example, financial aid,” he said, “that I’ve just read about in this report has leaped for our students from $3.2 million in 2004 to $7.9 last year. We must be doing something right!”
Mayo agreed with some of the group’s positions; he would love to have recess for all, but the dollars aren’t there to pay for it in his view. He did not appear to share or appreciate the high impatience of these parents. And he took exception to their meet-me-on demand style. “Teachers and administrators are human too,” he said.
Still, the superintendent had shown up, and a coveted monthly access had been granted to address recess, disciplinary policy and more.
“We want to know when that first meeting will be so we can attend!” cried out one audience member.
“I don’t have my calendar with me,” replied Mayo.
“Just set a date,” someone else cried out.
“Can’t the BOE send out a notice to everyone?”
“What can we accomplish with a thousand people in the room? Just call me and we’ll set something up with the leaders.”
After the meeting, Nilda Aponte said that despite the superintendent’s assertions to the contrary, suspensions are not being documented. “We will hold him to all his promises, and, no, we are also not giving up on recess for all kids. That’s just too important.”
Stay tuned.