Melissa Bailey Photo
Students at Hyde Leadership Academy will get the chance to study sports medicine at a college campus next year, thanks to a nearly $10 million federal grant to four city magnet schools.
Hyde, which was already an interdistrict magnet school, serves 200 kids in grades 9 to 12 in a swing space in Hamden. It will take on a new focus on health science and sports medicine, as part of a grant from the federal Magnet School Assistance Program, according to Bob Canelli (pictured), who supervises the city’s magnet program. He made the announcement at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting.
The $9.8 million, three-year grant will pay for equipment, professional development for teachers, and contracts with outside groups to beef up curricula at four schools. The schools — Hyde, Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS), Brennan/Rogers and Conte/West Hills — will use the grants in different ways.
Brennan/Rogers in West Rock, the city’s first in-house turnaround school, will become a magnet school with a communications/media theme. That will mean building a videolab and hiring a filmmaker to help students turn stories into short movies, Canelli said. The school will also set aside a few seats for students from other towns. Those students will be placed by an existing Project Choice lottery run by Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES), not through the general magnet school lottery, Canelli said.
Brennan/Rogers is now the city’s 18th magnet school.
The other three grantees are already magnets.
ESUMS is the city’s new magnet school focusing on engineering and science. Born out of a collaboration with the University of New Haven, the school is slated to be built on that college campus in West Haven as part of a new experiment to expose students to college-level math and science courses. The school currently serves grades six to eight at a swing space, St. Stanislaus’ church on State Street. In its third year of existence, it is already getting high marks.The school, which already takes students from other towns, plans to add one grade each year until it serves grades six to 12.
The federal grant will help define what the high school component looks like when the ninth grade is added next fall, Canelli said.
Conte/West Hills in Wooster Square will take on a new theme of invention and exploration. The school, which serves about 650 students in grades K to 8, has previously only taken students from inside the district. Now, like Brennan/Rogers, it will open up admission to students from out of town through the Project Choice lottery, Canelli said.
Hyde’s new academic focus comes with two university partnerships. One comes thanks to school board member Selase Williams, who’s also the provost at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). The sports science and exercise department at SCSU has “adopted our school,” said Canelli. He said the school will let students use its facilities, and will send interns to teach students sports medicine. Quinnipiac University will set up a similar partnership with its health science program, he said.
In getting the federal grant, New Haven beat out dozens of applicants, Canelli said: 98 districts applied, and only 36 were granted. He said the goal of the grants is to boost achievement and reduce isolation by race and ethnicity. Three years ago, the city got another three-year, federal grant from the same program, given to four different schools, he said. Of those, three made Adequate Yearly Progress on standardized tests, and one made Safe Harbor — signs of success, he said.