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Maya McFadden |
Feb 9, 2023 2:18 pm
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Learning chess at S.P.O.R.T. Academy's Fair Haven School afterschool program.
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"One, two, three... Chess!"
“If your pawn game is good, you can do so much.”
So teaches Edward Trimble during an afterschool program he runs through his nonprofit S.P.O.R.T. Academy, which brought together dozens of young students at Fair Haven School this week to reflect on the life skills they’ve learned on the chess board — and also to shoot some hoops, eat pizza, and celebrate a path towards sharper problem solving for even the humblest of chess players.
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Maya McFadden |
Feb 8, 2023 12:05 pm
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Emily Hays file photo
NHPS dropout prevention workers canvassing during the pandemic.
The city’s public school district plans to partner with 10 community organizations to provide case management and mentorship for students and families in a bid to make sure young people go to class, and to curb too-high rates of chronic absenteeism.
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Laura Glesby |
Feb 6, 2023 9:39 pm
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Mayor Elicker: "This year, in 2023, I’m here to report the state of our city is bright and New Haven is on the move."
While low test scores and attendance rates speak to profound challenges in New Haven’s public schools, the daily perseverance of dedicated staff and a curriculum overhaul are just some of the reasons for hope.
Mayor Justin Elicker offered that message in his annual State of the City speech before the Board of Alders on Monday evening, during which he declared that New Haven’s status is “bright.”
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Maya McFadden |
Feb 6, 2023 3:02 pm
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History teacher Pete Chase talking hydroponics as a way to keep students present and paying attention in the classroom. “I want to get them off those phones and playing in dirt.”
A trio of 3D printers worked at lightning speed making hydroponic-friendly pots in Riverside teacher Camar Graves’ classroom — as the alternative-public-academy educator worked just as diligently finding novel ways to connect with his students at a time when many remain glued to their phones and struggling to focus.
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Laura Glesby |
Feb 6, 2023 1:04 pm
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NHFT President Leslie Blatteau at Friday's state hearing.
New Haveners joined teachers, students, and public education allies from across Connecticut for a marathon legislative hearing at which they called for more state funding for school districts that serve the most vulnerable students.
Metropolitan Business Academy students left their smoke-scarred high school Wednesday and assembled in Hillhouse’s Floyd Little Fieldhouse to shoot hoops and play Four Square volleyball — and come together as a community at a time when it’s tough to be a teacher or a student.
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Laura Glesby |
Feb 1, 2023 3:23 pm
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Gladys Mwilelo reading to Clemente 6th graders Wednesday.
Jeremiah Pierce and classmates listen to Mwilelo's story.
After reciting a verse she composed herself, Gladys Mwilelo asked the class of curious Roberto Clemente sixth-graders peering back at her: “Do any of you write poems?”
“I share them with my little brother,” answered Yulianisse Féliciano with a wry smile. “He laughs at me.”
Mwilelo knows what it means to offer a voice that no one seems to know how to hear. When she first arrived in New Haven as a refugee, she didn’t know a word of English — and none of her classmates could speak Swahili.
So she responded to Féliciano with encouragement: “I promise you, one day I will be glad to read your poem.”
As a new lab and office tower continues to rise at 101 College St., Career High School senior Laila Mohammed has her sights set on growing science-career prospects of her own — thanks to a new $200,000 scholarship fund for public school students like her who live near the development and who pursue a higher-ed degree in bioscience or STEM.
Someone with teaching and administrative experience. A strong fiscal leader and capable grant writer. Someone who supports teaching the “whole child.” A collaborative leader who is responsive to data.
Those are a few of the ideal qualities for the next superintendent for the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), as raised by members of the Board of Education during a recent search-process meeting about who should replace the soon-to-retire NHPS Supt. Iline Tracey.
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Maya McFadden |
Jan 30, 2023 4:48 pm
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Clinton Avenue literacy coach Marilyn Ciarleglio (center) with NHPS Asst. Supt. Keisha Redd-Hannans.
Clinton Avenue School literacy coach Marilyn Ciarleglio has spent the past week getting a “refreshing” taste of a new K‑3 reading curriculum that has a Spanish-language component that’s been a gamechanger in helping teach multilingual students to read.
Eugene J. Foreman Jr. looked surprisingly calm with his walkie-talkie out on the Beers Street sidewalk outside Augusta Lewis Troup School as a siren sounded and kids poured out of the building.
At Thursday's protest outside of Gateway Community College.
Gateway Community College student and Board of Regents student representative Alina Wheeler lives on the edge — of affording to be able to stay in school, of being “just poor enough” to have her healthcare covered as she works towards graduating.
She and fellow community college students in similarly precarious spots are now worried they might not be able to finish out their educations thanks to a potential increase in tuition that could be coming down the pike now that the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Board of Regents has announced plans to raise tuition at state universities by 3 percent.
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Allan Appel |
Jan 27, 2023 11:00 am
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State Treasurer Erick Russell with PROUD Academy board member and former city Corporation Counsel John Rose at SCSU event on Thursday.
The nation’s first Black openly gay state official met the organizers of what hopes to become the first LGBTQ-centered private school in Connecticut — and one of only a handful in the country.
Their message about being “firsts” in an era of anti-gay backlash was identical and impassioned: Don’t just be your authentic self. Celebrate that self, too.
Kim Harris (center) & students, speaking up for tutoring plan.
The Elicker Administration’s bid to spend $3 million in federal aid on a new math and literacy tutoring plan moved ahead — against a backdrop of questions and concerns around how exactly the city will find the hundreds of volunteers needed to make this program work.
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Maya McFadden |
Jan 25, 2023 9:40 am
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CHRISTOPHER PEAK FILE PHOTO
The late Hazel Pappas, at an in-person ed board meeting in 2017.
The late longtime public education advocate Hazel Pappas was present yet again, this time in memory only, at the Board of Education this week — as current New Haven educators invoked the impact she had on countless local students, parents, teachers, and school staff who were able to meet her face to face at in-person meetings.
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Maya McFadden |
Jan 24, 2023 4:11 pm
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Elm City Montessori’s Blake Street campus.
The Board of Education signed off on extending Elm City Montessori’s charter, bringing the Blake Street local charter school one big step closer to winning another three-to-five-year renewal.
Wilcox: "Not all board members would be able to meet in person."
Local legislators endorsed Board of Education Vice President Matt Wilcox’s bid to serve another term on the city’s school board — after grilling the mayoral appointee on the board’s online-only meetings and fractured parental trust.
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Maya McFadden |
Jan 24, 2023 11:14 am
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Watch out for those pitfalls ... as presented at a recent Teaching & Learning Committee meeting.
Educators, consultant speak up to back program.
After a too-long stint of feeling way too isolated, Brennan-Rogers second grade teachers Samantha Conway and Tracey Peterson found a way out of their ruts thanks to an investment in their professional wellbeing by the teachers union and the city’s public school district.
Democratic mayoral challenger Tom Goldenberg added his voice to those calling for a return to in-person Board of Education meetings, in a press-release preview of comments he plans to make at City Hall Monday night.
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Maya McFadden |
Jan 20, 2023 5:24 pm
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Elm City Montessori's GSA students and staff, with local artist Kwadwo Adae, at a recent Friday meetup.
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Finishing up Elm City Montessori's new GSA-backed school mural.
Gender-neutral bathrooms. Thoughtful and caring educators. A Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) for middle schoolers. And a school mission statement that loudly and proudly supports LGBTQ students.
Those were just a handful of ideas that came to mind for the members of Elm City Montessori’s GSA when asked to dream up their ideal school.
New Haven can stop making drug arrests (while still confiscating fentanyl). It can stop making gun arrests (while confiscating more illegal guns). It can build needed new housing in places it never dreamed before, or change or even override zoning barriers. It can even teach kids how to read rather than teach them how not to read.
So says Liam Brennan. He bases those conclusions on his personal and professional life experiences. And he’d like to give New Haveners the chance to elect someone who intends to lead the city into that new era.
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Laura Glesby |
Jan 18, 2023 8:48 am
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Emily Hays File Photo
AFSCME Local 1303-467 President Cynthia Harris-Jackson at a vaccine clinic in 2021.
Local legislators unanimously approved a new long-awaited contract for school nurses, issuing future and retroactive raises for public health workers who have worked to keep schools and students safe throughout the pandemic.
Shafiq Abdussabur at WNHH FM: Community grows face-to-face.
The city’s Board of Education should ditch the remote and resume meeting in person to tackle the school system’s challenges, in the view of Democratic mayoral candidate Shafiq Abdussabur.
