by | Jun 6, 2024 9:31 am | Comments (0)
Jabez Choi photo
At Tuesday's fair in Hillhouse's hallway.
Incoming ninth-grader Chrisette Kendall didn’t go into Hillhouse High School’s extracurricular fair looking for anything in particular. She left wanting to join the cheerleading team, the math team, and the Brown Girls Cooking and Conversation Club.
Continue reading ‘For Newcomers, Hillhouse Gets Extra(curricular)’
by | Jun 5, 2024 1:45 pm | Comments (16)
Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
Sinclair McCutcheon (second from left): "We are better together.”
(Updated) Ocean Management is looking to sell a 70-unit Blake Street apartment building for nearly $14 million.
One of the property’s prospective buyers, if they can round up enough money in time, is that same building’s tenants union.
by | May 31, 2024 1:04 pm | Comments (0)
NHFD photo
The scorched back porch of 550 Ellsworth.
A single-alarm fire that started in an Ellsworth Avenue home’s back porch before jumping to the residence’s upper levels has displaced former Beaver Hill Alder Jill Marks and her family — who are now turning to the community for fundraising help.
by | May 15, 2024 8:34 am | Comments (16)
Maya McFadden Photo
Hillhouse's Antoine Billy: Will be back in August.
Not quite three months into his new top job, Hillhouse High School Principal Antoine Billy has taken up a bet with some of his staff — that he will be returning to Hillhouse at the end of summer break, and that he won’t make the school find its sixth principal in less than three years.
If Billy wins that bet — which, he promised this reporter, he’s 100 percent sure he will — he plans to celebrate with a glazed Krispy Kreme donut in August. And a successful school year to follow.
by | Apr 19, 2024 12:04 pm | Comments (32)
The indispensable DFA New Haven weighs in on freshly painted bike lane on long-delayed Edgewood cycletrack.
When the light at Osborn and Whalley turns from red to green, Hilda Kilpatrick counts to ten.
by | Feb 23, 2024 9:27 am | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photo
BOMUS leaders and panelists Melanie Thomas, Dondi José Burroughs Sr, Gary Winfield, Shante Teel-Williams, Alisha Crutchfield-McLean, Gary Highsmith, and Jamie Baker-Vilsaint.
Third and fourth-grade scholars at the Barack H. Obama Magnet University School sat in an audience looking at their future selves through the lens of a business owner, health professional, schools superintendent, state senator, and a motivational speaker/author.
by | Jan 31, 2024 9:40 am | Comments (11)
Brian Slattery Photos
Davis and Burgess.
On Tuesday morning, Peter Davis, a volunteer river keeper with the city parks department, and fellow volunteer David Burgess were over the edge of the slope off Diamond Street in Beaver Hills, lugging a dilapidated couch out of the woods. Around them was a thin carpet of other discarded objects. Among the trash bags were a fan, a decaying rug, a mattress, a rusting wheelchair.
It was a lot of garbage. Davis and Burgess were taking it one piece at a time.
Continue reading ‘Volunteers Take Out The Trash At Beaver Brook’
by | Jan 29, 2024 10:03 am | Comments (9)
Allan Appel Photo
Anthropology major Chris Kowalski (above) and Aaron Goode (below) de-vine by Beaver Brook.
Brian Slattery Photo
Clip high, clip low, create a window. Also don’t be a Tarzan and pull on those cut vines lest you disturb insect habitats or the birds high in the trees above.
Those were among the illuminating arboricultural tips offered for some serious de-vining of New Haven’s invasive-threatened native oaks, maples, sycamores, and hackberry trees growing on a beautiful but under-loved patch of city-owned forested greenspace.
by | Jan 9, 2024 11:24 am | Comments (3)
Hillhouse incoming principal Antoine Billy: On a mission to keep students' dreams from being deferred.
Maya McFadden Photo
Poster made by a NHPS paraprofessional for Monday's meeting.
The Board of Education heard about and took action Monday night on leadership of schools as well as the board itself, then received a plea from paraprofessionals for renewed contract negotiation.
by | Dec 22, 2023 9:59 am | Comments (14)
Contributed Photo
A mural painted in Hillhouse's cafeteria last school year.
Hillhouse didn’t have to give back any unspent money to the state after all — and was able to roll over more than $190,000 in last year’s school-improvement funds to the current school year.
Continue reading ‘Hillhouse Didn't Actually Have To Return $ To The State’
by | Dec 14, 2023 3:28 pm | Comments (15)
Maya McFadden file Photo
Paraprofessional Denise Roman gives Board of Ed a petition with 130 signatures in support of renegotiating the para contract rather than heading to arbitration.
Negotiations over a new contract for assistant teachers and parent liaisons has hit an impasse — as paraprofessionals cite too little pay, too much resistance from the public school district, and a contested union deal now heading to arbitration.
Continue reading ‘Paras Keep Up Pressure For New, Fair Contract’
by | Dec 12, 2023 5:43 pm | Comments (54)
Maya McFadden Photos
Hillhouse advocates (clockwise) Pamela Cummings, Sara Armstrong, Haruki Cubeta-Yonamine, John Saksa, Raven Mitchell, Karalyn Meineke, Leslie Blatteau, and Kevin Barbero.
All is not well at the city’s second largest public school, according to a group of Hillhouse High School educators and parents who raised the alarm to the Board of Education about overburdened staff, too many teacher vacancies, inadequate support for students, and inconsistent communication from school and district leadership.
by | Dec 4, 2023 12:34 pm | Comments (4)
Laura Glesby photo
Barack Obama students, recognized by state, cheer on their teachers.
Principal Jamie Baker beamed at the hundreds of Barack Obama School students seated before her in the cafeteria. “How are the best scholars in the United States doing today?” she called out.
“Good,” the students responded.
“Just good or excellent?” asked Baker.
“Excellent!” the children yelled in unison.
Continue reading ‘Barack Obama Named "School Of Distinction"’
by | Nov 2, 2023 11:09 am | Comments (12)
NHPS
Hillhouse's new auditorium roof.
Hillhouse High School’s auditorium now has a new, leak-free roof thanks to a nearly $300,000 replacement job completed in six months, rather than a year — as was originally predicted for the construction.
Continue reading ‘Hillhouse Auditorium's Leaky Roof Replaced’
by | Oct 30, 2023 3:22 pm | Comments (7)
Lisa Reisman photo
Leonard Gorham with Dr. Frederick Landy at Floyd Little-hosted clinic.
In the midst of a teeming bazaar of dental specialists cleaning, drilling, and extracting at Floyd Little Athletic Center, Leonard Gorham, a 71-year-old Air Force veteran from New Haven, relaxed into his dental chair, waiting to be fitted for a partial denture.
Its cost, ordinarily $500 to $1,500, was $0.00.
Continue reading ‘1,100 Smiles Brightened At Free Dental Clinic’
by | Oct 19, 2023 4:01 pm | Comments (18)
NHPS data
NHPS first-month suspension data from 2019 to 2023, with no data for 2020's remote year.
In-school and out-of-school suspensions are on the decline, with 151 taking place during the first month of the current school year — in comparison to 205 during that same time last year.
Even with that drop, the suspension numbers are still above where the district was pre-pandemic, when the district saw 142 suspensions in the first month of the 2019 school year.
Continue reading ‘After Covid Bump, Suspension Drop In Sight’
by | Oct 10, 2023 10:18 am | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden photos
Emonie Jackson, mastering pop art with Hillhouse art teacher Rebecca LeQuire.
Carlos Kirklan: Art is "an escape," and a chance to create.
With pop artist Keith Haring in mind, Hillhouse High School junior Emonie Jackson imagined up a chicken leg, to-go cup, and ketchup bottle all with arms and legs — and then penned those images to paper, honing her own creative style and skills amid her classroom’s dive into recent art history.
by | Oct 4, 2023 4:52 pm | Comments (20)
Frank Fanelli File Photo
Moisture bubbles and tears in the field house track as of Wednesday.
The city school district’s facilities team is sprinting towards a roughly $100,000 short-term fix for dozens of moisture bubbles and tears in the Floyd Little Athletic Center track surface — in the runup to a longer-term $1.3 million needed overhaul.
Continue reading ‘Floyd Little Track Repair Costs Bubble Up & Up’
by | Oct 3, 2023 10:15 am | Comments (6)
NHPS slide
Maya McFadden photo
Supervisor of Elementary Reading and Language Arts Jennifer Tousignant.
In an effort to improve reading levels for the city school district’s youngest students, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) has created a new 90-minute literacy block outline for kindergarten through third-grade educators — all based off of the district’s recently adopted core literacy program.
That block includes 30 minutes of phonics instruction, 20 minutes of whole group structured literacy learning, and 40 minutes of small group instruction.
Continue reading ‘New School Year, New Approach To Teaching Reading’
by | Sep 26, 2023 11:38 am | Comments (1)
Matthew Youkilis photos
Isiah Franklin, with Coach Alexander Baez and two Hartford baseball teammates: "Patience" is the word.
CC Sabathia: “I’ve been through so much on and off the field."
When CC Sabathia was nine years old, Oakland Athletics pitcher Dave Stewart visited Sabathia’s Boys & Girls Club — and that’s when the future Cy Young Award-winning left-hander knew what he wanted to do with his life.
It wasn’t just playing baseball.
Continue reading ‘Ex-Yankees Ace Pitches Baseball’s Future Stars’
by | Aug 31, 2023 1:27 pm | Comments (4)
Maya McFadden Photos
State Sen. Gary Winfield (right) and State Treasurer Erick Russell help welcome students back to to Barack Obama School.
Jomo Bartholomew with his seven- and thirteen-year-old kids: Start of school is "bittersweet" after such a fun summer.
Jomo Bartholomew is going to miss the summertime family fun of watching movies late at night and cooking breakfast together in the morning and visiting parks all over New Haven during the day alongside his two children.
And so it was “bittersweet” when he dropped off his seven- and thirteen-year-old kids for their first day of school Thursday morning, even as his family looks forward to the more stable routines of the school year ahead.
Continue reading ‘Students Head Back To School — With A Cheer’
by | Aug 29, 2023 4:33 pm | Comments (17)
Maya McFadden photos
Supt. Madeline Negrón salsa dances her way towards the 2023-24 school year ...
... at the annual, music-and-culture-filled NHPS convocation.
The nation’s top education official, Miguel Cardona, offered a custom playlist with a song for every occasion for New Haven teachers as they get ready for the start of the school year on Thursday.
Track 1: “Vivir Mi Vida” by Marc Anthony, as a reminder to enjoy the work you do.
Track 2: “Respect” by Aretha Franklin, for when politics tries to creep its way into the classroom.
Track 3: “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Jon Bon Jovi, for January when “we’re halfway there.”
Track 4: “Valio La Pena” by Marc Anthony, to know it’s worth it.
Continue reading ‘At Convocation, NHPS Dances To School Year's Start’
by | Aug 25, 2023 11:08 am | Comments (11)
Maya McFadden photo
At the NHPS district's New Teacher Academy.
Four tips for new New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) teachers:
1. Consistently communicate with parents about their students’ positive and negative behaviors throughout the year.
2. Restorative practice can save lives.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
4. Prioritize creating classroom procedures before a “cute classroom.”
Continue reading ‘Academy Preps 110 New-To-New Haven Teachers’
by | Aug 22, 2023 4:45 pm | Comments (1)
Lisa Reisman photo
Chef Marc Ramirez at the grill.
On a picture-perfect Sunday afternoon, kids moon-bounced, Fats Domino crooned, and Barbara Montalvo was dancing in the middle of Glen Road.
Barbara Montalvo.
“This is a fun, joyous event, neighbors loving neighbors, this is the community coming out embracing everybody, regardless of age, gender, color, creed, background,” she said, mid-swivel, amid the aroma of grilled hotdogs and burgers and the air of late-summer revelry in the tree-lined shade.
Continue reading ‘3rd Annual Beaver Hills Block Party Pulls Out All The Stops’
by | Aug 21, 2023 10:51 am | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photos
New Haven Federation of Teachers VP of Special Services Jennifer Graves distributes book bags …
… as students pick up books for home libraries.
Track your student’s attendance on a calendar at home. Establish bedtime and morning routines. And communicate with your school if you need help.
Those are some tips New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) gave families at a recent back-to-school rally as they prepare for the fast approaching first day of school on Aug. 31.
Continue reading ‘Rally Readies Students To Go Back To School’