by | May 15, 2013 1:06 pm | Comments (11)
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Elm City Montessori School co-founders Eliza Halsey and Dave Low.
The school board approved a proposal to open the city’s first public Montessori school in 2014, marking a step forward in a new experiment in grassroots, parent-led school reform.
by | May 6, 2013 3:53 pm | Comments (8)
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PALO ALTO — Three thousand miles away from New Haven, the city became Exhibit A in a showdown between a national union president and a charter school proponent about the future of school reform.
Continue reading ‘Weingarten Proclaims Victory In New Haven’
by | Apr 24, 2013 11:29 am | Comments (35)
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Dawn Gibson-Brehon and Rachel Heerema.
School board members asked why no more than six parents came to a public hearing about a superintendent search. They soon got a lesson — about the way officials interact with school parents in New Haven.
Continue reading ‘Ed-Boarders Learn Why Parents Don’t Show Up’
by | Apr 23, 2013 11:34 am | Comments (4)
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United Way VP Laoise King and schools wraparound chief Sue Weisselberg.
Officials announced the next five schools to receive extra social-emotional supports for kids — and pointed to a dramatic drop in behavior problems at Barnard School as an early sign that a new experiment is working.
by | Apr 19, 2013 9:38 am | Comments (4)
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Gateway Montessori’s Aeriana Blackmon & Una Heenan.
“Hallelujah!” declared Kaye Harvey: If a new pre‑K charter Montessori opens this fall, she said, she’ll have somewhere to send the tots who finish her tiny Montessori operation on Grand Avenue.
Continue reading ‘Parents Back City’s 1st Montessori Charter’
by | Apr 17, 2013 3:06 pm | Comments (18)
Twenty-nine teachers may lose their jobs at the end of the school year as the district’s new teacher evaluation system moves to a new phase: Pushing out not just lowest-performing teachers, but those who failed to improve to “effective” over three years.
Continue reading ‘11 “Developing” Teachers Face Possible Removal’
by | Apr 15, 2013 4:15 pm | Comments (3)
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The top two seniors at High School in the Community headed off to college early and met a tough transition — highlighting a key challenge for the school system as it puts a greater focus on preparing kids for higher ed.
by | Apr 9, 2013 2:25 pm | Comments (4)
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Superintendent Reggie Mayo and parent leader Hazel Pappas.
Taking a break from dramatically restructuring any failing schools next year, school officials are instead “exploring” a smaller experiment aimed at tackling a performance gap between black and Hispanic students at Wilbur Cross High.
by | Apr 8, 2013 3:43 pm | Comments (4)
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Teach For America? Not the answer.
New Haven school reform? Too soon to celebrate.
Continue reading ‘Holder-Winfield Takes Ed Reform Off-Script’
by | Apr 5, 2013 11:09 am | Comments (6)
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Teacher David Low and charter operator Michael Sharpe.
New Haven’s teacher of the year put on a “phosphorescent” shirt and lit up an Omni Hotel ballroom with a challenge to a school reform crowd: Let teachers be leaders without forcing them to leave the classroom.
by | Apr 4, 2013 3:32 pm | Comments (2)
Based in part on groundwork laid by the city’s experimental high school, the New Haven public schools have won a half-million dollars to start shifting high schools from a system based on seat time to one in which kids have to show “mastery” of skills to move through high school.
Continue reading ‘Schools Win $450K For “Student-Centered Learning”’
by | Apr 4, 2013 2:23 pm | Comments (8)
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As a special commission closes in on its deadline for proposing changes to the city’s foundational laws, a subcommittee has voted to recommend the city switch to a partially elected Board of Ed with seats set aside for students.
Continue reading ‘Working Group To Propose Hybrid School Board’
by | Mar 28, 2013 7:45 am | Comments (7)
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HSC wants freshmen like Aaliyah Staton and Serena Santiago to show “mastery” of a set of tasks before getting diplomas.
The school board has begun to tighten graduation requirements in effort to keep kids from arriving to college unprepared. Meanwhile, New Haven’s experimental high school is going straight to the Capitol for a fundamental fix to the same problem.
by | Mar 8, 2013 1:03 pm | Comments (1)
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“Donna! How’s this?” asked a senior fiddling with the opacity meter on Adobe Photoshop. He figured it out on the second try — far more quickly than his teacher figured it out after she had emerged from a three-year slumber unable to walk, talk or move.
by | Mar 7, 2013 2:41 pm | Comments (6)
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Sound School’s Gratz (at left): The numbers don’t tell full story.
New data detail the scope of a problem on which the city’s school reform drive has yet to make progress: Many kids either don’t enroll in college or end up dropping out.
Continue reading ‘23% Of HS Grads Finished College Within 6 Years’
by | Mar 5, 2013 1:55 pm | Comments (11)
Every city high school will have a full-time “dream director,” according to the goal of a $500K campaign Mayor John DeStefano and business leaders launched Monday to expand an experiment hatched by recent Yale grads.
Continue reading ‘High-Powered Cast Gets Behind “Dream City”’
by | Mar 4, 2013 9:11 am | Comments (6)
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Hill Central held a pep rally.
As standardized tests begin today, teachers face the question: How will kids keep learning during the two-week testing frenzy?
Continue reading ‘March Madness (The CMT Version) Grips Schools’
by | Mar 1, 2013 1:54 pm | Comments (0)
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Aaliyah checks her self-guided schedule.
Aaliyah Staton stepped into a time machine — one that transported her to a school that doesn’t exist yet, but will in years to come.
Continue reading ‘High School Of The Future Debuts, Briefly’
by | Feb 20, 2013 9:16 am | Comments (7)
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Mayo at right, heading into contract discussions Tuesday night.
The school board met behind closed doors Tuesday night to discuss details of Superintendent Reggie Mayo’s pending retirement.
by | Feb 18, 2013 9:03 am | Comments (1)
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Rev. Eldren D. Morrison.
A Dixwell pastor’s dream of creating a neighborhood charter school is getting a boost with a $7,500 donation from a foundation associated with Achievement First and ConnCAN.
by | Feb 4, 2013 5:03 pm | Comments (6)
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The library at Clemente, where 20 percent of students enrolled late.
A teacher has already mapped out how to help each of her kids master long division. Halfway through a math lesson, halfway through the school year, she gets a knock on the door: A new student is here.
Continue reading ‘Schools Absorbed 1,000 Transient Students’
by | Feb 1, 2013 4:21 pm | Comments (6)
The quest to succeed retiring New Haven Mayor John DeStefano officially became a two-man race Friday, as school reform remained a top campaign issue.
Continue reading
‘Holder-Winfield Files,
Calls For National
Schools Chief Search’
by | Jan 30, 2013 1:08 pm | Comments (22)
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Parent advocate Rosario (pictured at left with schools chief Mayo) rejected Fair Haven School’s new “Tier III” label.
The city’s top-performing high school slipped in the latest round of report cards, not because kids didn’t do well at the school — but because of how they fared in college.
Continue reading ‘Sound School Downgraded In Latest “Tiering”’
by | Jan 30, 2013 9:28 am | Comments (7)
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Holder-Winfield: Harries has kept lines open.
Mayor John DeStefano and schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo are leaving. Are Garth Harries and school reform sticking around?
That is the question on many minds in the wake of DeStefano’s bombshell announcement that he will not seek an 11th two-year term as mayor.
by | Jan 25, 2013 12:02 pm | Comments (5)
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Teachers Tom James and Michelle Cabaldon.
Picture this: You’re changing in the locker room. Another student, who is gay, walks into the room. What do you do?