Paul Bass Photos
Spell, Ortiz at WNHH.
Spending hours listening to adults on the Board of Ed bicker can be “frustrating,” but ultimately all share a passion for helping kids learn.
So observed Coral Ortiz, a Hillhouse High rising senior who is beginning her second year as a student non-voting board member.
Ortiz made the observation during an interview Thursday on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program. She was asked how it has felt participating in meetings at which members spend up to six hours arguing and making occasionally rude comments to each other.
“It’s a little frustrating,” she responded. She said she wishes “we could be more productive.” She cited delays in hiring administrators for the school year starting next Thursday and a potential loss of state grant money as a result.
However, she’s learning a lot on the board, including the lesson that “you can do something; you can stand up for what you believe in.” She also expressed support for members of both warring factions of adults: “I respect everyone on the board. I know they are passionate about children’s education.” (Click here to read about a board “therapy session” at which Ortiz urged them to stop bickering.)
New Haven added two student-rep positions on the board last year as a result of a city charter reform measure creating a partially elected body. Ortiz was one of the first two elected by her peers to fill the slot. Her first year saw much debate over conditions at Hillhouse High School, which she attends. She added her fellow students’ voice to the debate.
She and fellow student rep Kimberly Sullivan successfully pushed to be allowed to sit in on executive sessions concerning the performance of Superintendent Garth Harries. (They don’t attend executive sessions involving principals they may encounter as students.)
Recently those executive sessions have dragged on for as long as three hours, as some members have started the process of possibly ousting Harries.
After listening to the private an public debate, Ortiz said, she has concluded that while “you can pinpoint” mistakes made by Harries, “he has done more good than harm” as evidence by lowered truancy rates and gradually rising standardized test scores.
Jacob Spell — a rising Creed High School junior who just joined the board, replacing Sullivan — also appeared on Thursday’s “Dateline New Haven” program. He said he hopes to advocate for more social and emotional services for students in city schools. (Click here to watch a campaign video Spell made while running for the board seat.)
Both students came to public high schools from private K‑8s, Ortiz from Foote School, Spell from St. Aedan/St. Brendan. Both said they have enjoyed the transition to public high schools, where they find new opportunities.
Spell, who grew up in Newhallville, said he’s interested in a career in sports medicine, which Creed has a focus on.
Ortiz, who lives in Beaver Hills, said she felt more “entitled” until she attended Hillhouse. “When everything is handed down to you, you don’t learn how to advocate for yourself,” she said. I”’ve learned how to advocate for myself. I have learned important life lessons, to be grateful for what I have. … Teachers are there for me all the time.”
Both students said they agree in principle with people who say high school should start later. Right now high schools start earlier — 7:30 a.m. — than K‑8 schools do. (Some K‑8s start as late as 9:15 a.m.) Critics argue that high schools students’ biological clocks keep them up later at night, and that it makes more sense to have young kids start school earlier — especially since those kids’ parents need to get them to school or the bus stop before starting work.
“The lack of sleep” for high-schoolers up late studying and rising at 6 the next morning for school, Spell said, “may play into classroom performance.”
“If I had all the money in the world” at her disposal, Ortiz said, she would definitely use some of it to rearrange bus schedules for later high school start times. At the same, she said she has learned in her year as a Board of Education member that it takes longer than she previously thought to make changes happen.
Click on or download the above sound file to listen to the first 15 minutes of the WNHH “Dateline New Haven” radio interview with Jacob Spell and Coral Ortiz. (Due to a production error —sorry! — the last five minutes were not recorded.)