Schools

Gates Open To "BioCity"

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.

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Stacey Abrams Wows Future Voters

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.

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$16M Budget Surplus Announced; $8.5M Schools Investment Proposed

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.

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Brennan-Rogers Teachers: "Show Me The Money!"

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.”

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Rallies Call For More $ For Schools

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. 

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Understaffing Blamed For School Building Decay

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.

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Cross Calls Out Building Decay "Crisis"

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.

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Yondr At Barnard, Phones Out Of Sight

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.

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Custodial Union Prez: Stop With The Private Contractors

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.

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Hill High School(s) Redefine Fame

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.

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Termination Letter Cites Cybersecurity Failures

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.

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Manufacturing Lab Cut From Cross

by | Sep 6, 2024 11:53 am | Comments (8)

Laura Glesby File Photo

NHPS sixth graders at work, building a robot at Floyd Little Athletic Center. This work won't be done at Wilbur Cross.

The city’s public school district has scrapped plans to build a new manufacturing pathway lab at Wilbur Cross High School over concerns around contractor timeline and building space, and will be partnering instead with a Fair Haven manufacturing training nonprofit.

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Lee-Career Hall Of Fame Inductees Include Athletes, Educators

by | Sep 5, 2024 9:19 am | Comments (0)

Fifteen alumni — including athletes, educators, and even a Pulitzer Prize-winner — are set to be inducted into the Lee-Career Hall of Fame later this month, after hundreds of community members cast their votes for the most accomplished alums of the former and current Hill public high schools. 

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Cross Library Closed For Mold Clean-Up

by | Sep 4, 2024 5:33 pm | Comments (29)

Maya McFadden file photo

Vent trouble at Cross, the day before the start of school.

Wilbur Cross’s library will be closed for at least a week as the city’s public school district gets rid of air-borne mold spores — as part of its response to unkempt building conditions at the city’s largest high school at the start of the school year. 

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