by | Jan 16, 2023 10:37 am | Comments (2)
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Student council prez Julieta Diaz leads Martinez school meeting.
John S. Martinez School eighth grader Julieta Diaz and her fellow student council classmates had a decision to make: Should they donate the proceeds of a middle school recycling drive to a local homeless shelter, or should they throw their financial support to the city’s animal shelter instead?
by | Jan 13, 2023 9:20 am | Comments (13)
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Educators rally outside City Hall for full school funding in March.
Anna Marvin wants to continue her teaching career in New Haven after getting her elementary education degree from Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU).
But before she graduates, she’d like to see the city’s school district up its game when it comes to teacher retention and recruitment.
by | Jan 12, 2023 10:14 am | Comments (3)
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NHPS Supervisor of Literacy Lynn Brantley.
The city school district’s top literacy official plans to retire after 37 years of public education service inside and outside of New Haven classrooms.
Her planned retirement at the end of this school year comes amid the ongoing citywide debate around low reading levels and pandemic-era learning loss, as well as amidst a broader state-mandated shift in how schools teach young students how to read.
Continue reading ‘Literacy Director To Retire After 37 Years At NHPS’
by | Jan 11, 2023 2:04 pm | Comments (1)
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Samuel Rosenberg (right) in HSC's "Leadership 101."
Find ways to collaborate with others. Delegate work when you’re overwhelmed. Be open to criticism. And don’t panic when the best laid plans go a bit awry.
Those are a few of the lessons that High School in the Community (HSC) junior and literary magazine editor Samuel Rosenberg has learned in a new class focused on training current student leaders how to excel as the heads of their respective clubs and groups.
by | Jan 10, 2023 1:24 pm | Comments (8)
Teachers and building leaders who help out with before- and after-school programs will get a $13-plus hourly pay bump, thanks to a new agreement approved by the Board of Education.
by | Jan 9, 2023 6:53 pm | Comments (5)
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Board of Ed Prez Yesenia Rivera, Vice Prez Matt Wilcox, and Secretary Ed Joyner: All reelected.
Yesenia Rivera, Matt Wilcox, and Ed Joyner will all remain the leaders of the city’s Board of Education for at least another year after unanimously winning reelection by fellow board members.
by | Jan 6, 2023 3:32 pm | Comments (4)
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HSC grad Houston (right) offers current students college advice.
High School in the Community senior Amara Frazier-Conner sat across the table from her future self — in the form of recent grad Tyron Houston — to hear about how best to prepare over the next few months before beginning her own first semester in college.
Houston’s advice: Learn self-control, create study habits, don’t fall victim to peer pressure, and “get harder on yourself” now so you’re ready for the challenges of higher ed come September.
Continue reading ‘High-Schoolers Get Tips From Future Selves’
by | Jan 5, 2023 1:22 pm | Comments (5)
Thirty-eight families so far have chosen to move their students out of a West Rock magnet school and to another city public school that has more teachers on staff.
Continue reading ‘38 Students Transfer Due To Teacher Vacancies’
by | Jan 5, 2023 10:27 am | Comments (4)
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SCSU students moving onto campus in August.
The city’s school district is teaming up with Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) to train a group of paraprofessionals to help fill New Haven’s special education teacher gap.
Continue reading ‘NHPS-SCSU Special Ed Training Partnership Advances’
by | Jan 2, 2023 9:25 am | Comments (5)
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NHPS Supervisor Of Literacy Lynn Brantley and Assistant Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans at recent reading expo.
City public school district leaders have selected two new K‑3 literacy programs to use as part of a 12-school pilot process that is set to begin later this month — all as New Haven embarks on a state-mandated shift in teaching young students how to read by focusing on sounding out words instead of looking for other clues.
Continue reading ‘Reading Programs Picked For Phonics Pilot’
by | Dec 22, 2022 4:00 pm | Comments (3)
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At the newly opened Possible Futures bookstore in September ...
Brian Slattery Photo
... at a BAMN books event at Bloom in February.
Words flew off the pages of landmark new New Haven books, brought readers together in bustling new Dixwell and Edgewood community spaces, and sparked City Hall protests and public-education debates around how to create a better city — making 2022 a year even more than most in which books made a difference.
Continue reading ‘From Cover To Cover, 2022 Was A Page-Turner’
by | Dec 21, 2022 6:27 pm | Comments (9)
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Wilbur Cross's athletic complex: Ready for plastic repairs.
Synthetic turf prevailed over goose poop-laden grass — as high school athletes won not a football or soccer game but a civic debate against environmental advocates concerning the harms and benefits of replacing Wilbur Cross’s chronically muddy sports area with a field of plastic fibers.
Continue reading ‘Turf Tops Grass After Field Repair Debate’
by | Dec 21, 2022 3:30 pm | Comments (19)
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CT Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker: "I want Team New Haven to know that the Department of Education is here to support the work that you are doing."
Tuesday's state delegation-organized meeting about NHPS.
Connecticut’s top education official and New Haven state lawmakers called city public school district leaders to the table for a reality check on student chronic absenteeism — and for a discussion on improving local public education while working as one “Team New Haven.”
by | Dec 19, 2022 2:23 pm | Comments (2)
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First grader K'Jalee makes tasty treat for birds during Wellness Wednesday, an outdoors and inclusive successor to a talented and gifted program.
Students looking for color inspiration for their art class mandalas.
An Edgewood School first grader spooned sun butter and Cheerios onto a pinecone to feed a hungry bird.
Nearby, one of her fourth grade schoolmates found inspiration for a classroom art project in a pale-yellow house with green shutters.
And in an outdoor classroom area near Yale Avenue, an eighth grader weaved coral-colored yarn around two sticks to make a dream catcher to beautify her school, all as a part of a unique effort to address both social emotional challenges in the classroom and concerns about exclusivity in enrichment programs.
by | Dec 19, 2022 8:54 am | Comments (11)
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Shelley Smith and second grader Maite at New Haven Reads tutoring site.
The Elicker Administration is looking to spend $3 million in federal aid to build out a new math and literacy tutoring program designed to help up to 1,500 public school students catch up on lost learning during the pandemic.
by | Dec 16, 2022 5:19 pm | Comments (1)
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Eighth grader Dakarai Langley leads "Would Anyone Care?" dance about suicidal awareness.
With a look of defeat, Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School (BRAMS) eighth grader Dakarai Langley lifted his left foot and dangled it over the edge of an auditorium stage as a song shook the dark room with the lyrics: “Would anyone cry if I finally stepped off of this ledge tonight?”
And then Langley kept dancing, proving to everyone in the room before him just how lucky this city is to have this young artist call New Haven his home.
Continue reading ‘Winterfest Wows At Betsy Ross Arts Showcase’
by | Dec 16, 2022 2:42 pm | Comments (20)
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NHPS dropout prevention workers canvassing during the pandemic.
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NHPS's Dania Torres and Gemma Joseph-Lumpkin on Thursday.
When Dania Torres knocks on a student’s door, she doesn’t know if she’ll find a kid sick with the flu, a teen wrestling with substance use, a parent reeling from domestic violence, or a family preparing for the fallout of an eviction.
As a New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) dropout prevention worker, Torres is tasked with visiting the homes of students who have missed several — or sometimes most — days of school.
She explained the myriad of challenges that lead kids to build up absences and fall behind in school during a workshop on that very topic of chronic absenteeism hosted by the Board of Alders Education Committee.
by | Dec 14, 2022 8:59 am | Comments (39)
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The latest full Board of Education meeting.
School board members ended a meeting early after a heated disagreement over how best to move forward with the search for a new superintendent turned personal, amid fears of repeating the mistakes of a previous “unethical” search.
by | Dec 14, 2022 8:56 am | Comments (7)
New Haven Independent schools reporting has been recognized as one of “the 9 most memorable K‑12 education stories of 2022” in the U.S.
by | Dec 12, 2022 7:07 pm | Comments (8)
File photo
Brown: Coming back to NHPS.
Former High School in the Community Building Leader Matthew Brown is heading back to the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) district to become Wilbur Cross High School’s third principal so far this academic year.
Continue reading ‘Matthew Brown Tapped As Wilbur Cross Principal’
by | Dec 9, 2022 10:34 am | Comments (5)
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Michelle Sherban: "I have witnessed the impact we as educators have on the lives of our students."
Michele Sherban plans to retire at the end of this school year after more than three decades of serving New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) as a teacher, administrator, and central office director of research and evaluation.
by | Dec 9, 2022 9:08 am | Comments (8)
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First graders erupt from mountain pose at Lincoln Bassett.
Lincoln Bassett School first graders took a break from their usual class instruction to witness a volcanic eruption.
Luckily, the eruption took place during a yoga lesson where the students locked their fingers together, pointed them to the sky in a mountain pose, and then made them burst apart into what resembled an explosive geological wonder.
Continue reading ‘Volcano Pose Helps Students Erupt, Cool Off’
by | Dec 8, 2022 9:16 am | Comments (8)
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Ashley Stockton (center) at "Tell Me Why It Works" panel.
The stakes of learning the wrong way to read are more than just academic for Ashley Stockton.
The Wexler-Grant teacher saw firsthand how her son with dyslexia struggled in school when following a now-outdated method that prioritizes looking for clues and guessing at words — and she saw how his literacy improved when, with the help of a costly private tutor, he began to sound words out.
Stockton shared that story of her shift in understanding about how reading can and should be taught during a panel discussion called, “Tell Me Why It Works: The Science Behind Reading.”
by | Dec 1, 2022 5:36 pm | Comments (12)
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Career High's Jonathan Berryman with Board of Ed VP Matt Wilcox Wednesday.
The Board of Education has hired a national search firm to try to find the next city schools superintendent by March — raising public concerns that the process to find Iline Tracey’s replacement needs to be longer and more community-focused.
by | Dec 1, 2022 12:03 pm | Comments (16)
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Mary Healy.
The following letter was written by former Wexler-Grant 1st grade teacher Mary Healy, who resigned from her New Haven Public Schools job earlier this year.
Healy originally wrote this letter on Sept. 14. She then sent it by email to the Board of Education on Wednesday night to explain why she left after working for 10 years in a district she hoped to spend her whole career in.
The Independent is reprinting Healy’s letter/email with the author’s permission. Click here to read another recent Independent article about a teacher who left, and about what NHPS is doing to try to retain local educators.