After rejecting an offer to partner with charter network Achievement First (AF) on a new charter school, the Board of Education extended an olive branch of sorts at a special meeting Wednesday.
Board members unanimously voted to submit a letter to the state arguing in favor of AF implementing the new educational model “Greenfield” in three grades at Elm City College Prep’s elementary and middle schools.
The special meeting was called so the board could approve another round of unrelated district hires.
AF had proposed a partnership with the district to finance an experimental “Greenfield” “school of the future” with the distinct. The model, designed with the help of the inventor of the computer mouse, encompasses a variety of creative teaching and learning methods, including a calendar alternating eight weeks of regular classes with two weeks of career “expeditions” and daily blocks of “self-directed learning.”
When the Board of Ed voted to end those discussions amid acrimonious public debate, AF decided to go forward with the Greenfield model on its own in the kindergarten at Elm City College Prep Elementary School and in the fifth and sixth grades at a separate building at 495 Blake St.
In order to add the Greenfield model as an update to its charter curriculum, AF first has to go through a process for “charter review and modification,” Board of Ed President Carlos Torre said Wednesday.
State law requires local school board input for that process, “for us to say we have no problem with them putting it into their own schools,” Torre said. “They need a letter from us to do that.”
“I think it’s the collegial thing to do, you know? No hard feelings,” he said.
Torre and Board of Ed member Daisy Gonzalez recently joined AF’s Elm City College Prep and Amistad Academy charter boards, a position previously held by Mayor Toni Harp.
Harp Wednesday praised the Greenfield model’s “integration of social-emotional health into the educational curriculum,” especially given criticism of charter school students as “not as resilient” as non-charter public school students, she said.
The board drafted a letter to state Commissioner Dianna Wentzell with three reasons AF should be able to amend its charter:
”First, the proposed classroom and educational design recommends integrating important components of academic and social-emotional learning, and can lead to greater engagement, more progress, and deeper learning for students served by Elm City …
“Second, as you likely know, there was much controversy surrounding the failed proposed partnership between the New Haven Public Schools and Achievement First (AF). That controversy centered, mostly, on the partnership aspects being proposed and the projected district financial contribution, and less on the education model. Most critics of AF were interested in the progressive shifts embodied by the educational model, now proposed for implementation in existing AF classrooms instead of in a partnership with the New Haven Public Schools…
“Achievement First communicated often with families who were considering enrolling at Elm City to be sure they understood the Greenfield Model that would be implemented, including both written materials and workshop sessions. Therefore, changes to the educational model are best understood by those most effected – the students, families, and teachers that will implement them.”