by | Jul 18, 2014 8:45 am | Comments (6)
Melissa Bailey Photo
New Principal Janet Brown-Clayton.
At the new Lincoln-Bassett School, teachers will come early. Students will be invited to stay late. Class sizes will be smaller. Staff will use the Comer Method to help kids cope with trauma.
Continue reading ‘Principal Cleans House, Charts Turnaround’
by | Jul 17, 2014 3:42 pm | Comments (9)
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Morrison.
After firing their scandal-plagued management partner, Rev. Eldren Morrison and his colleagues hired a $150,000 school director and voted to open their new charter school next month anyway — with 120 instead of 225 kids.
by | Jul 15, 2014 8:30 am | Comments (0)
On a balmy Thursday last week, the students of Morse Summer Music Academy fanned out across New Haven for the first of their new “pop up concerts,” setting up shop inside the Peabody Museum and outside the Yale School of Music. Katherine Roque led the charge in a thicket of high school-aged students, joining an ensemble that was down one flutist. A few blocks away, Jocelyn Hernandez, Jesus Cortes-Sanchez and Richard Romero looked after the groups they had been “coaching” for a mere three days, readying them for their first public appearance.
by | Jul 15, 2014 6:49 am | Comments (12)
Melissa Bailey Photo
Six weeks before she is set to open an academy within Hillhouse High, Principal Fallon Daniels and her new assistant pondered a question: Would a first-period gym class lure kids to show up on time to school?
by | Jul 14, 2014 12:30 pm | Comments (25)
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Displaced teacher Alex Oji: “How are we going to be successful” at the next school?
Twenty-nine teachers are leaving Lincoln-Bassett and MicroSociety schools — some voluntarily, some not — to make way for slated overhauls of low-performing schools. Where will they go next?
by | Jul 11, 2014 4:29 pm | Comments (26)
Amid scandals affecting New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the state education department “needs to do a better job” in monitoring charter schools — but stood by his expansion of charters across the state.
Continue reading ‘Guv Defends Charters, Calls For More Scrutiny’
by | Jul 11, 2014 8:13 am | Comments (1)
What’s the best way to divide New Haven into two new voting districts?
by | Jul 9, 2014 11:50 am | Comments (16)
CTN
Rev. Eldren Morrison trekked to Hartford Wednesday to issue an urgent appeal to the state to let him open his new charter school next month — with a last-minute change in management.
by | Jul 8, 2014 8:14 am | Comments (3)
The Board of Education won’t be able turn two properties on Runo Terrace into a parking lot for Quinnipiac School in Fair Haven Heights just yet, not before a full accounting of school construction costs.
Continue reading ‘Alders To Probe School Construction Costs’
by | Jul 7, 2014 4:00 pm | Comments (12)
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Tara Cass jumped the line to become a public school principal — and took with her some tips she learned at a charter school during an unconventional leadership training program.
Continue reading ‘Experiment Turns Teachers Into Principals’
by | Jul 4, 2014 9:58 am | Comments (3)
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McKinney (center) and press aide Jodi Latina talked to reporters on Chapel Street.
The state should have done its homework before allowing the charter organization known as FUSE to take over low-performing public schools, a Republican gubernatorial candidate said during a New Haven campaign stop.
Continue reading ‘McKinney: State Failed To Vet Charter Group’
by | Jul 3, 2014 11:04 am | Comments (5)
A teacher who is dying of an autoimmune disease pours her energy into an after-school ballet program that transforms young girls’ lives. A student wakes up at 4:30 a.m. every day to get on a public bus in search of a good education. A gay teacher comes out of the closet during a social justice lesson. A refugee from Burundi finds her strength and rhythm in music class.
These stories — often lost in the national debate over how to fix American public schools — can be found in a new e‑book published by the New Haven Independent Press.
by | Jun 30, 2014 1:37 pm | Comments (15)
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Pastor Eldren D. Morrison is applying for state permission to replace the embattled charter management organization that was supposed to help launch his new school this fall — but, after an illegal closed-door meeting, refused to say who the new partner is.
Continue reading ‘Pastor Boots FUSE, Finds New Charter Partner’
by | Jun 27, 2014 4:15 pm | Comments (2)
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Ten years after helping launch John S. Martinez School, Sequella Coleman is moving across town and replacing a star principal at one of the city’s highest performing K‑8 schools.
Continue reading ‘New Principals Picked For Martinez, Davis St.’
by | Jun 27, 2014 12:15 pm | Comments (0)
CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS
School bells have stopped chiming for summer break, but memories of an exciting unit that had Edgewood School third-graders visiting Hartford’s Trash Museum, participating in an Edgewood Park clean up, and creating related art and poetry, continue to resonate with staff and students alike. This article was submitted by third grade teacher Kim Rogers and Arts Integration Coordinator Juliet Avelin, both of Edgewood School.
Continue reading ‘Edgewood School Third-Graders “Talk Trash”’
by | Jun 26, 2014 5:19 pm | Comments (18)
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Cruz (at right) leads a tour of the gym.
The city’s latest effort to revive an abandoned Fair Haven school building has come up with only one response — a plan to reclaim the space for arts and apartments.
by | Jun 25, 2014 9:49 am | Comments (3)
Melissa Bailey Photo
Three years after moving to New Haven from Puerto Rico with just a few words of English, Debralee Valentin said adios to Fair Haven School — and hello to her future in a mainstream English classroom.
by | Jun 24, 2014 1:09 pm | Comments (0)
Walsh, Maleek Wray & Joshua Silba at one final deep-think.
You don’t rat out your bank-robber accomplice — even if you obtain a prize by doing so.
by | Jun 24, 2014 8:33 am | Comments (9)
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Morrison.
Michael Sharpe, the man Rev. Eldren Morrison chose to help open a charter school in New Haven, has left his position in a cloud of deceit. Morrison said he’s sticking with that man’s model of schooling.
by | Jun 24, 2014 8:26 am | Comments (2)
Liana Teixeira Photo
First-generation high school graduate Melesio Rodriguez turned his tassel Monday night as he set off for a new challenge at Southern Connecticut State University — avoiding crippling debt in the process.
Continue reading ‘The Road From Graduation To College: Paved With Financial Choices’
by | Jun 20, 2014 10:20 am | Comments (23)
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Rev. Eldren Morrison, who’s about to open a new charter school in New Haven, came out Friday in support of the embattled charter management organization he has hired to help him.
by | Jun 18, 2014 11:53 am | Comments (2)
Meagan Jordan Photo
Shirley-Ann Feliciano who ranked in the top 5 in her senior class at Metropolitan Business Academy, received recognition and a Kindle Tuesday along with 20 other high-school graduates who grew up in public housing.
Continue reading ‘From Public Housing To Legal Career Tracks’
by | Jun 18, 2014 8:22 am | Comments (4)
Melissa Bailey Photo
New Haven enlisted Rodriguez to help 7 other teachers improve.
Before joining the “Dream Team,” rookie teacher Mark Cofrancesco would sometimes catch students “zoning out” after he launched into 40-minute lectures. Now he’s got a new game plan.
by | Jun 17, 2014 4:58 pm | Comments (19)
Melissa Bailey Photo
Weingarten with Peletier at Tuesday’s convention.
The head of a national teachers union praised a “dear friend” and third-party candidate who was barred from addressing a labor convention — then made a case for why delegates should instead support a governor who has angered teachers.
Harry Potter/ Chion Wolf Photos.
Lord Voldemort (left). Pelto (right).
by | Jun 17, 2014 7:41 am | Comments (0)
Meagan Jordan Photo
After spending hours putting plants in the ground for their school’s new “habitat,” Worthington Hooker students got a chance Monday to plant rocks.
Continue reading ‘Worthington Hooker Unveils Schoolyard Habitat’