Wanda Gibbs.
Beloved city educator Wanda Gibbs has died after a lifetime of helping her students turn around their lives in and outside of the classroom.
She died from cancer Tuesday in hospice. She was 70 years old.
Gibbs, a native of Albemarle, N.C., moved to New Haven as a child and graduated from Richard C. Lee High School in 1969. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at New Hampshire College, Southern Connecticut State University, and Fairfield University. She began her educational career in West Haven, then accepted a position at Hillhouse High School in 1986. She served as a teacher, social development facilitator, cheerleading coach, administrative intern, and assistant principal at Hillhouse, before becoming principal of Riverside Education Academy in 1994. She retired in June 2015, then agreed to provide administrative support at West Rock Stream Academy and Wexler-Grant Elementary School.
Word of her illness and death spread widely through the ranks of her former students, many of whom spoke of how she touched their lives. And the tributes — about saved and transformed lives — began pouring in.
Gibbs at an Allick family wedding.
DeAri Allick, 33, who graduated from Riverside in 2006, described Gibbs as a second mother. Gibbs was a close family friend who also taught Allick’s older siblings, but when she became his high school principal, that didn’t make her cut him any slack.
He said Gibbs’ daily dedication to him as a student helped him to graduate on time and made him feel like he had a chance to do better in life despite difficult circumstances he’s had to overcome.
He recalled Gibbs keeping him on track while in school by waiting at the front entrance every school morning to welcome him and other students. If they had missed the previous day, she asked them: “Where was you at yesterday? I didn’t see you?”
Gibbs continued helping Allick after graduation as he took up a career in youth intervention. Gibbs helped him to get his first space for his summer program Fearless Youth Academy in 2016 at her church, where he remained for four years.
(Click here to read a story about how Gibbs helped another Allick launch a program to connect with young men at risk of violence.)
Former student Vernon Horn, now 42, met Gibbs at 10 years old when his older sister was attending Hillhouse and his mother was struggling as a single parent living with HIV.
Gibbs made his mother a promise that she would do all that she could to help her to raise her family and her children to graduate from school. “Don’t worry. We’re going to get this done,” he remembered her saying.
When Horn was 11 years old his mother passed away. As a high schooler, his older sister, Tanisha, was tasked with raising Horn and his younger sister. Gibbs helped Tanisha to reach her high school graduation and later was Horn’s principal when he attended Riverside (formerly known as Transitional Academy).
The track Gibbs had laid for Horn to graduate was disrupted when at age 17, he said, he was wrongly incarcerated for a 1999 convenience store robbery and murder and served 17 years until being exonerated in 2018.
When Horn was cleared in 2018, one of the first calls he received was from school system youth specialist Kermit Carolina (a former Hillhouse principal) and Gibbs. They promised they would to help him to track down his high school transcript to obtain his GED.
He recalled Gibbs telling him in her sweet but stern voice, “Welcome home, Vernon. I’m glad you’re back, because I got to keep my word to your mother.”
Horn, currently enrolled at Adult Education, said he has learned what true strength and willpower are from Gibbs.
“I know what pain is, and I know how hard it is to endure and be strong. She did that even when she was facing adversity herself,” he said. “No matter how much adversity came her way, she stood strong for her community and our people. She didn’t waver.”
"The Cop Of New Haven"
Former Riverside student Sharie Thomas met Gibbs her freshmen year as a result of getting in trouble and being sent to Riverside for its transitional program.
While a teen, Thomas was missing a lot of school due to her mom being sick, which took an emotional toll on her and eliminated her primary daycare option for her son.
She recalled Gibbs telling her, “What the hell is your problem?” after she dropped out of high school for a year.
She told Gibbs she wanted to give up after losing her mother and being on the verge of homelessness with her newborn.
Gibbs partnered with Kermit Carolina to watch after her son for two to three hours for four weeks while in school to help Thomas catch up on her learning. Gibbs’ and Carolina’s help and support enabled Thomas to eventually transfer from Riverside to Wilbur Cross and graduate with honors.
Gibbs was later her son’s principal at Riverside and helped him to also get back on track.
“If it wasn’t for Ms. Gibbs I would have never made it,” Thomas said. “I wouldn’t have been nothing. I had nobody but her.”
Gibbs helped to enroll Thomas in her first CNA class. She now works at Yale New Haven Hospital.
She remained in contact with Gibbs throughout her life. She described her as the “cop of New Haven” who provided families with groceries and clothes from her school office.
Building A "Bridge"
Kermit Carolina, who’s currently the supervisor of the Office of Youth, Family & Community for the public school system, began his career 30 years ago with mentorship from Gibbs. He started teaching at the Transitional Academy, which started out of a church, and watched Gibbs’ vision for Riverside blossom as a “bridge over troubled waters” for “misguided students who needed the love, patience, and support of at least one caring adult who could provide hope for a better future.”
From Gibbs, he said, he learned to never give up on students despite their circumstances.
“No matter what failures or misdeeds a student experienced before arriving at Riverside, she never allowed that to define who they could become,” Carolina said. “She always saw the best in them and believed they would one day grow into responsible adults who could make a difference in the world.“
He also learned of the importance of establishing deep connections with students’ families, of listening to students’ stories, he said. Her “love, patience and empathy” enabled many kids to grow and cross that “bridge over troubled waters” (an image featured in a mural made by her students at Riverside).
Fearlessness In Action
Tanya and her mother.
Gibbs was also the “glue” for her family and “the life of the party,” said her daughter, Tanya Gibbs-Scott. “People gravitated toward her.” She worked hard as a mother of four children and a supportive grandmother and great-grandmother, Tanya said. She was still speaking to her mother up to ten times a day toward the end, and went on their most recent “girls’ trip” to Mohegan Sun before Mother’s Day this year.
She remembered her mother almost never taking days off work from school — and working hard at her church, Bethel AME, where she was an active congregant for 44 years and an emeritus member of the Board of Stewards.
Tanya also remembered her mother began shopping in January for Christmas presents for all her students.
Giving was “in her blood,” Tanya said, and working as an educator was her ministry. She would work with “kids dealing drugs on the corner” to pursue more productive life paths.
One “fearless” story she remembered from her youth: They were driving down Howe Street, and they saw a group of people bullying a man carrying food. Her mom didn’t know the man. But she parked the car, jumped out, chased the bullies away — and put the man in the car to drop him at home with his groceries. She would “bust into drug houses” to retrieve boys she knew.
Her mother died of cancer. Her death left “a void in my heart that just cannot be fix and can’t be filled,” Tanya said.
During her years in public service, Wanda Gibbs received three New Haven Board of Education T.A.P.S Awards, the West Haven Black Coalition Leadership Award, and honors from The Elm City Club, the Connecticut Chapter Community NETwork Award of Excellence, the West Haven Black Coalition Hall of Fame Award, and the Robert H. Saulsbury Award for academic excellence, dedication, hard work, and compassion for the youth of New Haven.
She leaves behind Dr. Anthony J. Davis (Jacqueline) of Whitsett, North Carolina; Helen Barnes (Ronnie) of Timberlake, North Carolina; Tanya Gibbs-Scott (Mark); and Walter Gibbs II of New Haven, Connecticut. She also is survived by eight grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; a special family friend, Caroline Apgar; two spiritual sons, Kermit Carolina, and David Diah; and a spiritual daughter, Jillian Knox.
Her funeral is scheduled to take place July 13 at Bethel AME Church.