Hamden Parents United members Lena Smith Parker, Christina Larrow, Sarah Northrop, Principal Nadine Gannon, and Melissa Atterberry-Jones.
Thursday's spread.
Hamden High School teachers, social workers, nurses, and security showed up to work at 6:30 a.m. Thursday, ready to be released into a highly anticipated week of spring break following a tough few years — then were surprised with a breakfast buffet served by smiling parents.
The coffee cakes, fresh fruit, and caffeine marked the “inaugural event” organized by Hamden Parents United, a crew of local guardians looking to show school staff support during trying times.
Teachers chat over morning coffee.
The group, founded by Melissa Atterberry-Jones, director of “The Village” youth center, is focused on showcasing parents’ appreciation for those who care for their kids — as well as on building bridges between the district’s school system and the general public.
“We started this in December,” Atterberry-Jones recalled, “after all the negativity” surrounding news of heightened fighting and violence among youth populations due to the pandemic, particularly in Hamden High and Middle Schools.
“We decided to get a whole bunch of parents together and just be a support system for students, for families and for the broader community,” she said.
More than 500 parents are now members of Atterberry-Jones’ Parents United Facebook page — and working to get community resources into public schools, centering their efforts on improving the whole of Hamden’s collective sense of pride and wellbeing through an abundance mindset.
The Keefe Community Center provided partial funding for the morning treats, catered by Whitsons Culinary Group. The school system has also launched partnerships with The Village and the Clifford Beers mental-health agency to ensure that kids, families and staff alike are receiving extra care and attention not only in school, but outside of classroom hours. They’ve also worked with residents and parents to form new solution-oriented teams, like the Hamden Diversity Advisory Committee, to bring people across town together to tackle equity and safety across schools.
Gannon's "Dragon Pride" cart, used to distribute, among other items, menstrual products for school bathrooms.
Atterberry-Jones sports a Hamden school pride wrist band.
On Thursday, Hamden High already had several plans to lift school spirit: Staff and students wore tie-dye to celebrate the upcoming April vacation; plant giveaways, science presentations, and outdoor time were scheduled as mid-morning Earth Day activities; eighth graders milled the hallways while taking a tour of their academic home for the next four years; and Principal Nadine Gannon was rolling around a light-up cart while handing out “Dragon Pride” wristbands and chatting with teens.
“You have to live here to see the love and the nurturing,” Gannon told the Independent. Sure, the year has brought staff shortages, social media chaos, and unique challenges to classrooms across the country. But community members rarely get a chance to read about the resiliency and engagement of those stepping up and into school every day.
For example, Gannon said, last week Hamden High evacuated students in the face of a non-credible bomb threat. “There were news reporters lined up outside the front of the school,” she recalled. “But what they don’t see is the 1,700 kids in the football field playing with paper airplanes. They had fun and they cheered each other up,” she said.
“The kids are trying to figure out the way that we define who we are — because the media has defined who we are,” Gannon commented.
The sense of community that exists outside of school grounds and across town, Gannon and staff noted, is necessary in empowering kids to connect with one another and care about contributing not just in the classroom but to society at large.
On Thursday, something as simple as a danish was enough to help staff sense the public’s appreciation for school services and staffs’ hard work to always put the kids first.
“You can feel the energy in the room today,” observed ninth grade English teacher and yearbook advisor Erica Tamson as she made herself a plate. “Coffee goes a long way,” she said — and “being recognized by the community” goes even further.
The past year, she acknowledged, has been hard. “We’re transitioning from distance learning last year to in-person teaching — the ninth graders have been out of school since seventh grade.”
The district has had to think out of the box in order to figure out how to meet the changing needs of kids who have suffered during the Covid era, implementing “game changing” policies like free breakfasts and lunches for all students and a more robust social emotional learning curriculum.
Thursday’s breakfast was not strictly concerned with thanking overworked staff for all they continue to do to provide for the district’s children — but about continuing to bolster the resources that the broader community is contributing to that shared cause.
“This is a step in the right direction to build that school community bridge,” Tamson reflected. It is crucial, she said, that teachers and staff strengthen their relationships with local organizations like The Village, which support students outside of school hours. As families continue to struggle financially and children face new hardships at home, initiatives like grocery distribution and affordable child care are increasingly key.
Erica Tamson: "This is a step in the right direction."
“We’re a wonderful school, a diverse school — a place people can find themselves and get what they need,” pitched in Loretha Felton, the chair of the school counseling department who’s been working in the district for 33 years. “I love my district, I love my coworkers, and I love my kids. We cry with each other and we celebrate each other — it’s love that compels everything.”
“I tell you it’s so important,” she continued, her eyes welling up with tears, “to know that people are saying we believe in you, we support you.”
“We need more compassion,” Tamson reflected. The pandemic has shown communities, she said, “that we’re really in this together.”
“We’re having to do school and life in a way we haven’t known — kids did lose a lot… So we also have to connect in ways we haven’t known before.”
The social worker offered some advice for everyone feeling down and out in the current culture of bad news media: “Always be intentional about finding the good.”
Atteberry-Jones with Loretha Felton and Sarah Northrop. Northrop and Felton noted that they met for the first time years earlier — not through their children, but through an adult ed jewelry making class they both took at Hamden High in the early 2000s.