“We Are A Mess”

“We are a mess,” he said. ​“We’re going down in flames.”

Torre has been an appointed board member for 20 years (in two decade-long stints). He previously served as board president. Until this year, meetings tended to be peaceful, efficient, with little debate or rancor.

That all changed over the past six months. Controversies have clouded board meetings. And the board has split into two factions. One faction — including Torres, no longer the board president; Alicia Caraballo; and the first-ever elected board members, Edward Joyner and Darnell Goldson — is highly critical of the school administration. Members have killed proposals and stopped appointments. Heated and sometimes personal board debates have stretched meetings long into the night.

The Independent has documented those controversies weekly in news stories. The board’s new president, Mayor Toni Harp, has given her side of the controversies on her weekly ​“Mayor Monday” WNHH radio show. Members of the other side asked for equal time to give their side of the story. So Torre and Caraballo — who served as principal of the Adult Education school before retiring after 26 years with the school system — showed up to do that on an episode of WNHH’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

Caraballo shared Torre’s critique of the current school administration. But she also sounded notes of optimism. A new board is asking questions that need to be asked, she said. And all members of the board share the same goals. They’ll work it out, she predicted.

You can hear the full interview by clicking on the audio file at the bottom of this story. Edited and condensed excerpts of the conversation follow:

WNHH: What is the problem? What needs to change?

AC: There are things going on. I mean one of the things we are all concerned about is the number of teachers and the number of people leaving our district. I don’t remember in the last 26 years I‘ve worked in this district a time where, for example, this year where we essentially had vacancies.

What are the numbers? 

AC: I can tell you that pretty much at every board meeting we have lists of resignations. Thats pretty consistent throughout the year. This is a business. Education is a system that people commit to throughout a year. I’m not saying people don’t leave or things don’t happen, but for the most part staff pretty much stays put, and then changes obviously happen in the summer, so that our students have consistency of having a teacher in the classroom.

This year that has not been the case. We have key vacancies. Not only in terms of our central office, but also we have a high number of teacher and staff who are leaving at the same time that we receive one of the largest grants in the country. It’s a teacher incentive fund that essentially provides us $14 million a year to focus on our talent. To focus on our staff.

So we’re getting money to get keep teachers, but we’re losing them. Why is that happening?

CT: I’ve never seen, in the 21 years I’ve been on the board, the morale so low. It permeates the entire district.

It’s not in just one area. I do not go out looking for people to tell me what the heck is going on in your area. Don’t think that appropriate as a board member, but people come to me. And if they come to me, I will listen.

Why is the morale so low? 

CT: Let me put it this way. I think every organization, every family, every single human being needs respect recognition, a feeling of belonging, a feeling that they are apart of something that’s going somewhere bigger than themselves. That somebody has their back. That they are reliable. That they are surrounded by people who are reliable. That’s not happening.

AC: Can I speak to that? Part of what’s happening — and unfortunately it ends up being words like rancor and disagreement — but I do think that part of what’s happening is change. I mean, we are a different board. We now have two elected members. There are a lot of questions that are being asked. There’s a lot of information. There’s a lot of funding and resources, which we all know are drying up, so we have to do more with less. Disagreements are just in fact a board that needs to develop into their own.

Some people say it’s micro managing if you get too involved in the day to day [decisions affecting the schools] Other people would say that’s what you’re on a board for. I’m hearing from Alicia that we set up a committee to work on [concerns about the superintendent’s performance] so that we have a defined time to give that feedback [rather than using up hours of Board of Education meeting time] … 

AC: Right. So this question of micromanaging comes up. I guess in the best-case scenario, if you have a district where the superintendent is clearly on top of his or her game, there may not be a need of getting more involved. But when you have the concerns — I mean let’s look at Hillhouse [High School]. Let’s look at it in terms of staffing. Let’s look at the morale issue. There a list of host of things that are of a concern.

In some ways, looking back at the evaluation [of the superintendent], in some cases you have to take a more active role. Believe me I have no interest in being the superintendent, but I do have an interest in making sure in some of the concerns [are addressed], for example [at] Hillhouse.

I remember the first [Board of Ed] Finance Committee meeting I attended two years ago. The first thing that I saw was where money was going to be used for the renovation of Hillhouse. Well, I started asking questions immediately. So then I became informed in terms of the changes that were happening at Hillhouse. Some of us had concerns going back two years since we started. The reason why it’s not a question of micromanaging — it’s a questions of trying to address some of these concerns that are concerns in our district.

Do you feel like you were ignored in the [recent hiring] process [of new administrators before the completion of a planned revaluation of the central office]? Do you guys feel like you have come to an agreement with the other side on processes not being followed? LINK

CT: I have felt disrespected, and I’ve said that in public. I’ve felt disrespected in many different ways. We get some things clarified, and then people move ahead as if we never said anything. Like the case of this reorganization committee [set up to reevaluate the central office]. If you don’t know whether you’re going to end up with a helicopter, a tractor, or a bus, then how do I know if I should go out and get a propeller, a tractor wheel or a bus wheel? We don’t know. So why start throwing positions at us for us to hire when we haven’t finished the design of what it is that we want?

AC: Not only that. We also have to be realistic of a $3.6 million [budget] cut [for the new fiscal year].

[About] these long [Board of Ed] meetings that everyone feels are a disservice to the public — they [sometimes run] more than five hours, with name calling [and comments like] ​“Slow your roll, mayor.” Do you feel like it’s all coming from one side? 

AC: I don’t think it’s one side against the other. I really don’t. I think we are all struggling in terms of trying to get through this work. Trying to be able to work together more effectively as a team.I think we are all very committed to the same place.

One of the things I found interesting was this notion that elected members when they come on, they respond to their constituents [unlike appointed board members]. Well, we all respond to our constituents. We all do, and so I couldn’t really understand how that was any different from me who is not elected, but certainly feel that my constituents are students and staff and parents in this community. So I think we’re all here in the same place.

CT: Our constituents are the entire city.

Why did you get involved in the Board of Education? You sit through a lot of these meetings. 

CT: Meetings used to be shorter so it used to be a lot easier to sit through them.

How do you like it then compared to now? 

CT: New Haven is the 11th poorest district in the country. Not the state. The country. Out of 15,000 [school districts]. We have made gains in New Haven second to none. President Obama and former Secretary of Education Duncan have praised us and put us as the model for the country.

But you get the sense, though, if you follow the Board of Education, that now we are a mess.

Yeah we are. We are going down in flames.

Why are going down in flames? 

CT: It’s much more complex than this, but let me boil it down to three factors.

What we’ve had in New Haven that has made us a model for the rest of the country is that we’ve had vision combined with creativity. That’s important, because vision is very frustrating. You can see the promised land, but you’re never going to get there. Creativity by itself is also frustrating because it’s like those wind-up cars that just go anywhere. You can solve problems that don’t even exist. You can be creative all you want. But when you put them together, you look at the reality what’s going on there. You have the vision of where you want to go and how to bring it about.

So then why are we going down in flames? 

CT: Because we are missing the human relations: the interactive part of education, which in my mind is the single most important element. But it’s also the one that gets the least attention in education. We have plenty of vision. Everybody has vision all over the place. But we’re no longer creative, and the human relation aspect is out the window.

AC: I do think it may appear [to be] dysfunction, but I do think with the board that we have, with our commitment here, and with our staff that ultimately, we’re going to get to the right place. 

Click on or download the above sound file to hear the full interview with Caraballo and Torre on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

This episode of ​“Dateline New Haven” was made possible in partnership with Gateway Community College.