by | Oct 16, 2024 3:08 pm | Comments (7)
Laura Glesby Photo
Students Destiny Lugo and Makayla Kidd with CT Teacher of the Year Julia Miller.
“She lets her guard down with us. She’s human with us,” Metropolitan Business Academy Senior Makayla Kidd told a room full of students, educators, and city leaders.
Kidd was talking about her civics teacher, Julia Miller — who is now Connecticut’s Teacher of the Year.
by | Oct 16, 2024 2:20 pm | Comments (5)
Supt. Madeline Negrón (right): No comment on investigation, departure of Tom Lamb.
A four-month investigation into the school district’s chief of operations found that none of the allegations of wrongdoing were substantiated.
What those allegations were? The superintendent won’t say.
Continue reading ‘Allegations "Not Substantiated" Against Operations Chief’
by | Oct 14, 2024 4:10 pm | Comments (26)
Thomas Breen photo
Tom Lamb, resigned as of Oct. 3.
More than four months after being placed on paid administrative leave with no explanation offered by the district, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Chief Operating Officer (COO) Tom Lamb has resigned.
by | Oct 14, 2024 12:18 pm | Comments (1)
Jabez Choi photo
Shayel Rodriguez (center) with her parents at Hispanic Heritage Month celebration.
On the lookout, at Cross.
Wilbur Cross tenth grader Shayel Rodriguez gathered with 12 other student dancers in the school’s gymnasium to perform Puerto Rican bomba, Colombian cumbia, and Brazilian samba – to help celebrate the cultural heritage of the school’s diverse and growing Hispanic population.
Continue reading ‘Cross Cumbias For Hispanic Heritage Month’
by | Oct 11, 2024 1:00 pm | Comments (5)
Maya McFadden photos
Godslove Ampah (right), with math teacher Tonya Howard: "Whenever I look at an equation, I just want to use my brain to figure it out."
Time to math! The standard algorithm way, at Troup.
Troup fifth-grader Godslove Ampah used to struggle most with math, back when she was still living in her home country of Ghana.
Now, three years later, that’s completely changed — and Godslove finds multiplication challenges fun, thanks to the help of a local teacher working to make sure students know more than one way to solve a problem.
by | Oct 10, 2024 12:49 pm | Comments (6)
Maya McFadden file photo
Edgewood Principal Nicholas Perrone, making dream catchers with students as part of the ARPA-funded ECHO program.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) has met its first of two key deadlines for spending, and not having to give back, $123 million in one-time federal pandemic-relief funds.
Continue reading ‘Schools Covid-$ Update: "We Spent It All"’
by | Oct 9, 2024 8:43 am | Comments (2)
NHPS FACEBOOK photo
The inaugural 15-person BioCity cohort, excited to get behind the bench.
Fifteen public school students are now able to earn college credits by heading to one of the city’s newest labs — to witness and participate in cutting-edge research happening right here in New Haven.
by | Oct 8, 2024 8:30 am | Comments (16)
Allan Appel photo
Stacey Abrams (right), and interlocutor Emily Bazelon: "If you’re interested in peoples’ lives being better, that’s politics.”
State government is by far the least understood in our system, and in many ways the most important to get right if we want to achieve the goals of democracy.
Former Georgia state rep and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams made those remarks, by turns trenchant yet largely apolitical, at the Hopkins School Monday afternoon before no fewer than 1,200 enthusiastic, applauding young people.
by | Oct 3, 2024 9:46 pm | Comments (44)
Nora Grace-Flood file photo
Mayor Elicker: The city's "financial situation is on stronger footing than it has been in many, many years."
Increased state aid, building permit revenue, and savings due to staff vacancies helped the city end last fiscal year with a $16 million budget surplus — a portion of which the mayor now plans to direct towards New Haven’s public schools.
Continue reading ‘$16M Budget Surplus Announced; $8.5M Schools Investment Proposed’
by | Oct 1, 2024 11:18 am | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photos
Liliana Jimenez's painted rocks ...
... for close friend Evyana Devine Vidro, at a new memorial at Wilbur Cross.
Cherry blossoms and rays of sunshine came to life and mind as Wilbur Cross students gathered to honor their late classmate, 15-year-old Evyana Devine Vidro.
by | Sep 30, 2024 3:32 pm | Comments (7)
Jabez Choi photo
Charlene Neal-Palmer: "Brennan-Rogers needs money."
Jabez Choi photo
Rally outside Brennan-Rogers calls for more state funding for public schools.
When Brennan-Rogers sixth-grade teacher Charlene Neal-Palmer graduated from the AFL-CIO Labor Leadership Academy and saw U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, she walked right up to him. Before she could even give him her name, she said, “Brennan-Rogers needs money.”
She clarified quickly: “The whole NHPS needs money.”
Continue reading ‘Brennan-Rogers Teachers: "Show Me The Money!"’
by | Sep 30, 2024 12:51 pm | Comments (16)
Laura Glesby photo
School Psychologist Yesenia Garcia calls for smaller class sizes at Monday's rally.
Fair Haven School has just one social worker, one psychologist, and one school counselor — to support over 800 students.
At one of three rallies that took place across the city’s public school district Monday morning, Mayor Justin Elicker said that the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) system needs an additional $35 million in order to fund a “reasonable” ratio of one social worker per 250 students.
Elicker offered that assessment as 50 educators, students, and allies gathered outside the Grand Avenue public school to call for that funding.
by | Sep 27, 2024 1:38 pm | Comments (33)
Cross girls' locker room, photo courtesy of Cross counselor Mia Comulada Breuler.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) leaders said the district needs 33 more tradesmen to just begin working towards addressing its thousands of building-disrepair work orders — while the head of the school system’s custodial union called for more in-house hiring, and less private contracting.
Continue reading ‘Understaffing Blamed For School Building Decay’
by | Sep 26, 2024 12:59 pm | Comments (12)
Maya McFadden photo
Michael Carter: CAO Act II looming?
Four days before his public school district operations consultant contract is set to expire, Mike Carter is still “undecided” as to whether or not to stay in the post — or, potentially, return to his former top City Hall job.
by | Sep 25, 2024 10:00 am | Comments (40)
Maya McFadden Photos
Cross staffers speak out (clockwise from top left): Brian Grindrod, Eric Teichman, Kathryn Dadio, Dario Sulzman, Mia Comulada Breuler, and Mark CoFrancesco.
Nearly 20 Wilbur Cross educators, parents, and students showed up to the latest Board of Education meeting to give the city’s public school district a failing grade for unsafe, unhealthy, and unsightly building conditions at New Haven’s largest high school.
by | Sep 25, 2024 9:32 am | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photo
Frankie Roman, Casey Gargano, and Patricia Melton at New Haven Promise.
Like the young people it helps develop into successful college students and adults, New Haven Promise has entered its teens full of growth of possibility.
by | Sep 20, 2024 3:27 pm | Comments (10)
Thomas Breen photo
Owen Agba, Grace Sherman, and Nathaly Ynoa Martinez: No phones, no problems.
When Barnard School eighth-graders Grace Sherman and Nathaly Ynoa Martinez and Owen Agba arrived at school Friday morning, they put their smartphones in magnetically sealed pouches — which they likely wouldn’t unlock until the end of the day.
After participating in a year-long experiment in phone-free classrooms, they looked forward to another day of in-person learning and socializing with friends, unmired by the distractions of TikTok and Instagram. Meanwhile, their governor and one of their U.S. senators popped into their school to learn about how that’s all going.
by | Sep 18, 2024 9:28 am | Comments (9)
Maya McFadden Photo
Tom DeLucia (right) with fellow Local 287 employees: "The situation was never good, but the last two years have been truly deplorable."
Local custodian union President Tom DeLucia is calling on the Board of Education to rid New Haven of private companies for building and facilities maintenance in order to improve repairs at decaying schools across the district.
Continue reading ‘Custodial Union Prez: Stop With The Private Contractors’
by | Sep 16, 2024 9:28 am | Comments (0)
2022 Hall of Famer Shirley Neighbors (right) pins 2024 inductee Charles Williams for a half century of service to New Haven's public schools.
A public schools superintendent, a Pulitzer Prize-winning financial journalist, and a high school leader in points, rebounds, and blocked shots all now have at least one thing in common: They’re all newly minted inductees to Lee-Career High’s Hall of Fame.
by | Sep 13, 2024 1:10 pm | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen / Maya McFadden file photos
NHPS Supt. Negrón (right) to fired I.T. boss (left): "You took no steps whatsoever to ensure BOE was protected from cyberattacks."
(Updated) The Board of Education’s I.T. network was “among the worst” a cybersecurity contractor had ever seen — and New Haven Public Schools’ (NHPS) top tech safety official misrepresented the work she had done to protect the district from future cyberattacks following a $6 million hack.
Those sharp rebukes are included in a three-page termination letter sent by NHPS Supt. Madeline Negrón to Gildemar Herrera. The letter offers the first publicly available insight into why the district fired its I.T. director, who also serves as a municipal union president.
Continue reading ‘Termination Letter Cites Cybersecurity Failures’
by | Sep 12, 2024 2:41 pm | Comments (5)
Maya McFadden Photo
Ranisa Sweat teaching English class at Troup.
Troup seventh grader Lizmarie Hernandez eyed the word “consume” in her English workbook.
Instead of looking it up on her phone, she flipped to the book’s glossary to learn its definition — and then wrote that down by hand to help herself remember.
Continue reading ‘No Yondr Pouches (Yet), No Phone Problems’
by | Sep 11, 2024 12:00 pm | Comments (2)
After a summer of completing paid internships and starting entry-level jobs across New Haven, 160 New Haven Promise scholars are kicking off the school year with a total of nearly $1 million in hand.
Continue reading ‘Promise Scholars Go Back To School With Summer Earnings’
by | Sep 11, 2024 10:10 am | Comments (11)
Maya McFadden Photo
Dee Marshall: "We don't need to just put our kids just in a class so the bodies will be some place. They need enrichment."
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) needs to amp up its resources for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in order to get back to developing enriched “future leaders and global citizens.”
Continue reading ‘Teacher To NHPS: Middle Schools Need Help’
by | Sep 10, 2024 3:40 pm | Comments (17)
Maya McFadden file photo
Keisha Redd-Hannans: In some cases, NHPS surpasses pre-pandemic growth numbers.
NHPS data
New Haven students are steadily making their way back to pre-pandemic proficiency rates, as newly received state assessment results for the 2023 – 24 school year show improved math, science, and English skills.
by | Sep 10, 2024 11:44 am | Comments (7)
Metropolitan Business Academy social studies teacher Julia Miller, who is going on 18 years of teaching, has been named the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) teacher of the year.
Continue reading ‘Julia Miller Named NHPS Teacher Of The Year’