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Thomas Breen |
Feb 24, 2023 1:44 pm
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Wilbur Cross Principal Matthew Brown on Friday.
One month and one day into his new job as principal of New Haven’s largest high school, Matthew Brown hopes to help make Wilbur Cross “the premier urban comprehensive high school in the state of Connecticut” — even as he, his colleagues, and the school’s 1,642 students face head on the challenges presented by pandemic-era disruptions to public education.
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Thomas Breen |
Feb 24, 2023 12:31 pm
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Cross football captain Giovanni Melendez (right) with fellow student-athletes at Friday's presser.
Wilbur Cross athletic fields and track, now under construction.
Wilbur Cross student-athletes like football captain Giovanni Melendez looked forward to firmer synthetic-turf footing and a home-field setting to be proud of next season — at a press conference marking $4.35 million in mostly state-funded renovations to the East Rock school’s athletic complex.
At the first public-input superintendent search meeting at Barack Obama school.
The city’s search for a successor for the public school district’s soon-to-retire Supt. Iline Tracey is about to enter its next chapter, now that public-input meetings and focus groups are done, the public survey has closed, and the job posting has just one more day before coming down.
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Laura Glesby |
Feb 22, 2023 4:48 pm
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Educators rally outside City Hall for full school funding last March.
City teachers will be getting a 15 percent pay raise over the next three years — while a new math-and-literacy tutoring initiative will be getting $3 million in federal aid to get off the ground — thanks to two recent education-focused votes by the Board of Alders.
Newly re-confirmed Board of Ed VP Matt Wilcox at Tuesday's alder meeting.
Board of Education Vice President Matthew Wilcox won another four-year term on the city’s school board — after alders debated how to assess his leadership over a school system grappling with low attendance, a reading instruction overhaul, and severe teacher shortages.
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Maya McFadden |
Feb 21, 2023 10:55 am
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Sixth grader Mahki in Platt's art class.
A “House of Video Games” took shape line by line beneath sixth-grader Mahki’s pen — as Edgewood School students brought Detroit’s fabled Heidelberg Project into their New Haven classroom.
In the process, the students discovered how public art can transform blighted homes into objects bursting with color, life, and beauty, and they continued their monthlong celebration of contemporary Black artists and changemakers.
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Laura Glesby |
Feb 20, 2023 1:45 pm
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Doing the solar system dance at Harris and Tucker preschool.
Tysin, a 4‑year-old budding outer space enthusiast, had a question for the special guest from NASA who had come to visit his Newhallville preschool: “How can I touch a star?”
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Liliya Garipova |
Feb 17, 2023 2:26 pm
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Hillhouse's cheer team, led by coach Michelle Sepulveda (below).
Hillhouse High School cheerleader coach, truancy officer, and former West Rock/West Hills Alder Michelle Sepulveda opens up about her work inspiring and training young athletes — and making sure that students go to class, at a time of high chronic absenteeism across the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) district.
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Maya McFadden |
Feb 17, 2023 2:13 pm
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At Friday's Black History Month celebration at Barack Obama School. "What Black history means to me is that I get to celebrate the Black people who made the world a better place," said one student.
Students honored after "caught being STRONG."
Perfect attendance, Black trailblazers, and the ability to gather in-person as a school again were all causes for celebration Friday, at a student-and-staff-led Black History Month event hosted by Barack H. Obama Magnet University School.
Attendees at Wednesday's superintendent search community meeting. Top row, left to right: Robert Gibson, Sean Reeves, Margaret Mary Gethings. Middle row: Kim Rogers, Rev. Joseph Champagne, Kelvin Rutledge. Bottom row: Shafiq Abdussabur, Shannon Mykins, and Leslie Blatteau.
Troup School reading instructor Pamela J. Tonge needs the next superintendent’s help in bridging the divide separating administrators and parents from teachers like herself, who work daily to help young students catch up to grade-level literacy despite a lack of classroom resources and respect.
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Allan Appel |
Feb 16, 2023 8:42 am
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Malek Alkhalawe at Common Ground Wednesday.
When Malek Alkhalawe graduates from Common Ground High School this spring, he will already have in hand several serious Google IT certifications allowing him to start his own business online while studying computer engineering in college.
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Maya McFadden |
Feb 15, 2023 9:49 am
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Thomas Lamb, Viviana Conner, and Michael Finley: 2-yr contracts approved.
The next schools superintendent already has key members of their executive team in place — even though the search has only just begun for a new district top administrator — now that the Board of Education has approved two-year contract renewals for New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) chief of operations, chief of staff and assistant superintendent for instructional leadership.
Hillhouse teacher Raven Mitchell: "We take on more than what's in our contracts."
Frustrated by years of working extra jobs to support her family, Fana Hickinson nearly left the teaching job she loves at New Haven Academy — until a draft union contract promised her a salary increase that convinced her to stay.
Jonathan Berryman at union rally: "We are not a cookie cutter district."
The city’s teachers union envisions a school system less reliant on test scores, more attuned to students’ emotional and cultural empowerment, and more pliable to input from every corner of the school community.
Over 20 teachers and allies gathered outside City Hall to call for the next superintendent to act on those values — and for a transparent, inclusive process for selecting the next top school administrator.
"Ms. B" helping a student-actor get ready for Newsies, Jr. in January.
Briana Bellinger-Dawson left her “dream job” as an arts educator at Nathan Hale School earlier this month after deciding that she could no longer afford to work part-time and not receive the support she needed to get her teaching certification.
Her departure has left a community of Morris Cove families already feeling the beloved teacher’s absence — and speaking out about their frustration that the city’s public school district didn’t do enough to hold onto a life-changing role model who went above and beyond to bring performing arts to city students.
Shafiq Abdussabur at Thursday's public hearing: "Not amused" by mayor's pitch to drop residency requirements for some city dept. heads.
Leaders of the city’s teachers union called for the school board to have two additional elected members — and for the mayor to be stripped of his ed-board voting powers.
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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.
Maya McFadden photo
"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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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.
