by | Dec 5, 2024 9:26 am | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden File Photo
At Betsy Ross's Winter Fest: High school performers, coming soon.
Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School (BRAMS) will have an inaugural ninth grade class next year — as the district works to transition the 5 – 8th grade middle school to a 7 – 12th grade high school in order to better accommodate students’ high demand for arts instruction.
by | Dec 4, 2024 4:00 pm | Comments (4)
Zachary Groz photo
Alder Caroline Smith joins East Rock School's bike club.
As temperatures dropped and a bitter wind bore down on Tuesday afternoon, a few dozen cyclists suited up in jackets and gloves, and filled the streets leading to East Rock Park. Coursing down Livingston Street, they breezed past Willow and Canner, hooked right onto Cold Spring, and circled back to Eagle, where their three-mile journey had begun.
The ages of the speedsters? Nine and 10 years old.
by | Dec 4, 2024 3:40 pm | Comments (11)
Maya McFadden Photo
NHFT President Leslie Blatteau and Vice President Jenny Graves re-elected for another term.
Leslie Blatteau has officially won a second three-year term as the president of the teachers union — after running in an uncontested election conducted entirely by email, except for a single paper ballot.
by | Dec 4, 2024 2:39 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel photo
Panelists Rev. Dr. Dan Heischman, Valerie Mara, and Salman Hamid.
Here’s a hypothetical: You’re a teacher thrown into a class mid-semester and you have to choose in those first high-anxiety days between prioritizing learning a curriculum utterly new to you or learning the (yipes!) 27 students’ names.
What to do?
by | Dec 4, 2024 11:27 am | Comments (35)
Photo contributed by Colin Ryan
The late Daily Jackson, whose godfather described him as "an adorable kid who was bustling with energy."
Thomas Breen photo
NHPS Supt. Negrón (right) on Wednesday: "Please know that these days are very hard for the school community."
(Updated) Seventeen-year-old New Havener Daily Jackson was walking on Shelton Avenue Tuesday evening when someone in a “suspect vehicle” shot and killed him and drove away — making him the second Riverside Academy student to die by gunfire in the past two weeks.
“These are connected,” Police Chief Karl Jacobson said at a Wednesday afternoon press conference, at which he described the two Riverside homicide victims as friends who belonged to the same “group” that has been feuding with another youth crew in town.
Continue reading ‘2 Riverside Teens, Friends, Killed In 2 Weeks’
by | Dec 2, 2024 2:27 pm | Comments (1)
MAYA MCFADDEN Photos
At Booker T. Washington Academy's Balloons Over State Street parade.
Aaliyah Staton, with Cherish and Kai: Showing up now helps kids when they're older.
Aaliyah Staton cheered on her son, Kai, and her niece, Cherish, as they marched in Booker T. Washington Academy’s first-ever Balloons Over State Street celebration.
Continue reading ‘School Parade Flies Balloons Over State St.’
by | Dec 2, 2024 8:14 am | Comments (1)
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Classmates Robina, Faryal, and Ghofran, at Troup's annual multicultural luncheon.
Sitting around a lunch table draped in an aquamarine cloth and topped with festive fall ornaments, Robina, 10, Faryal, 12, and Ghofran, 12, giggled and cracked jokes, translating them into English after the fact, in between bites of fried chicken, bread rolls, and rice.
by | Nov 27, 2024 11:37 am | Comments (13)
MAYA MCFADDEN Photo
Hillhouse Principal Billy: "We're better than last year."
Hillhouse’s average attendance rate so far this year is 84 percent — a number the high school’s principal credits to, and hopes to improve on, by paying special attention to making sure ninth graders come to class.
Continue reading ‘Hillhouse Attendance Rx: Focus On First-Years’
by | Nov 26, 2024 8:57 am | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden photo
Hillhouse junior Johanelyz Arroyo (center): "Hear us out."
Elevating the voices of 19,000 New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) students may no longer fall just on the Board of Education’s two student representatives — if the school district agrees to a new “liaison” role drafted up by city high schoolers.
Continue reading ‘Students Seek Clearer Communication Between Schools, School Board’
by | Nov 22, 2024 12:29 pm | Comments (15)
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Rosales: "It feels like a family" at Hillhouse.
Jaqualine Rosales is no stranger to moving. After leaving her family in El Salvador, she lived for a time in Texas, and then in South Carolina. Now in New Haven, the 18-year-old Hillhouse High School student lives by herself. She doesn’t feel alone, though.
“I’ve been to a lot of schools and I’ve seen a lot of education [in] different ways,” Rosales said on Thursday at a press conference calling for deeper state investments to help young people who might otherwise fall through the cracks. “But New Haven has something special because this school feels like [a] second home to me…it feels like family.”
Continue reading ‘State $$ Sought To Support Disconnected Youth’
by | Nov 22, 2024 10:53 am | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen file photo
School snow to be removed by contractors, only.
New Haven Public School (NHPS) has hired three outside contractors for snow removal this winter — thereby icing out the custodial union from the cold season lineup, due to the district’s current lack of working in-house snow plow vehicles.
Continue reading ‘Schools Assign All Snow Removal Work To Outside Contractors’
by | Nov 20, 2024 2:22 pm | Comments (20)
Laura Glesby photo
Majority Leader Richard Furlow to Board of Ed: "Get it together."
The Board of Alders issued a lifeline — along with a warning — to the Board of Education, as they unanimously approved transferring $8.5 million from the city’s surplus for the school system’s use.
by | Nov 19, 2024 9:37 am | Comments (5)
Update: Tuesday 11:37 a.m. A maintenance crew has repaired a broken heating system at Edgewood School, and the heat is back on in the building, schools spokesperson Justin Harmon reported Tuesday morning.
“The first of the two pumps has been repaired and reinstalled,” Harmon told the Independent.
A previous version of this story follows:
by | Nov 18, 2024 2:39 pm | Comments (72)
Maya McFadden file photo
Assistant Principal Clarino and Principal Gethings: To be separated come January?
Worthington Hooker parents and teachers are looking for answers about the uncertain future of their school’s leadership — including at Board of Education meetings, where some have spoken out against potential plans to transfer the East Rock elementary and middle school’s assistant principal.
Continue reading ‘Hooker Crew Calls For School Leaders To Stay’
by | Nov 18, 2024 1:49 pm | Comments (3)
IKEA Website
IKEA's recycling and trash bins, to be donated to NHPS.
More than $3,000 worth of trash and recycling bins are headed to New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), thanks to a recent donation from IKEA.
by | Nov 15, 2024 2:47 pm | Comments (6)
Maya McFadden photo
Bohannon, on the job 27 years and counting: "I make myself available to make the ship run smooth."
Kindergarteners greeted Benjamin Jepson Building Manager Mark Bohannon with hugs and fist bumps as the school’s top custodian prepared to escort them from the gym to their classrooms — as part of a daily morning ritual that goes well beyond taking out the trash.
But it includes plenty of that, too.
by | Nov 15, 2024 9:30 am | Comments (1)
contributed photo
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Connecticut is looking for volunteers to mentor at-risk New Haven students. Read their full press release below.
by | Nov 13, 2024 3:58 pm | Comments (8)
Maya McFadden file photo
Director of Professional Learning and Leadership Development Edith Johnson: “This will be a game changer."
Yale Teaching Fellowship timeline for first cohort.
The school district’s retention and recruitment efforts just got a $10 million boost, thanks to a new Yale-funded fellowship to support teacher certification as part of a joint effort between the city, Yale University, Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), and New Haven Promise.
Continue reading ‘Yale, City, SCSU Launch Teaching Fellowship’
by | Nov 13, 2024 8:34 am | Comments (2)
MAYA MCFADDEN Photo
Nike Bonhomme: "This is a huge achievement for me."
Bonhomme celebrates her award with her former teacher, Da'Jhon Jett.
When Troup School eighth grader Nike Bonhomme got on stage and her school auditorium filled with cheers to celebrate her surpassing her math goal last year, she was filled with motivation to do it all again this year.
by | Nov 11, 2024 8:57 am | Comments (2)
Contributed photo
Cross's library: Back open, but still with old carpeting.
Wilbur Cross High School’s library is back open after a month-long mold closure — and new vinyl flooring will be coming soon to replace the room’s mold-prone carpeting.
Continue reading ‘Cross's Library Back Open; New Flooring Coming Soon’
by | Nov 8, 2024 5:11 pm | Comments (13)
The racist post-election text messages being sent to Black students around the country have also targeted some New Haven students, according to school district leaders.
by | Nov 8, 2024 9:05 am | Comments (4)
MAYA MCFADDEN Photo
Da'Jhon Jett magnetically unlocks students' phones during Wednesday dismissal at Troup.
Troup School has officially kickstarted its phone-ban rollout, and saw that throughout the day, students participated in class more and were less distracted — even if students said it was “awkward” and even “scary” to be without their phones.
by | Nov 6, 2024 1:20 pm | Comments (4)
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Sasa Harriott: "My fight was not over yet."
The crowd listened, rapt, as Sasa Harriott told them about her lowest point.
by and | Nov 5, 2024 8:04 am | Comments (14)
MAYA MCFADDEN Photo
21 Wooster Pl: Recipient of 8.5% of ESSER building-repair funds.
A former school building in Wooster Square has yet to reopen as an administrative office building — even after two years and $1.2 million worth of renovations.
Continue reading ‘NHPS Spent $1.2M Fixing Up Still-Empty Office’
by | Nov 4, 2024 2:06 pm | Comments (15)
Nora Grace-Flood File Photo
Teachers union Prez Blatteau: Running uncontested for 3 more years.
The polls are now open for the New Haven teachers union elections — and first-term incumbent President Leslie Blatteau is running unopposed at the top of the ticket.