Jabez Choi photo
At Tuesday's fair in Hillhouse's hallway.
Incoming ninth-grader Chrisette Kendall didn’t go into Hillhouse High School’s extracurricular fair looking for anything in particular. She left wanting to join the cheerleading team, the math team, and the Brown Girls Cooking and Conversation Club.
“I liked seeing what Hillhouse has to offer,” Kendall said, after perusing the tables.
The extracurricular fair, organized by Hillhouse parent liaison Brittiny Johnson, displayed 18 of Hillhouse’s extracurricular offerings next academic year for incoming ninth graders and new families in a first-floor hallway at the 480 Sherman Pkwy. public high school on Tuesday night.
Among the activities represented at the fair were sports teams, academic clubs, and cultural groups, alongside tables promoting financial education services and health check-ups from Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Hillhouse counselor and school Spanish Honors Society co-advisor Haruki Cubeta-Yonamine noted that many Spanish-speaking students will attend volunteer events, even if they are not formally inducted, just to take part in the community. According to Cubeta-Yonamine, the club doubles as a cultural gathering place. In fact, so many students show up that the volunteer events almost begin to feel like a “party.”
“That’s what I like. Hillhouse is finally starting to build a little bit of community. This school has seen a huge change in demographics” as Spanish-speaking students have increased “and I feel like having these different organizations that highlight culture and language is important,” Cubeta-Yonamine said. “It’s been rewarding to see the students thrive in their own different ways.”
The Brown Girls Cooking and Conversation club is a mentoring program for young girls of color. Johnson, who also currently directs the club, noted that the club has been a pivotal bonding experience for young girls of color.
“In Brown Girls Cooking and Conversation, we talk about what it takes to be us. And we cook great meals,” Johnson said. “We teach the girls how to love themselves.” The club has also taken members on numerous field trips, including a memorable trip to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in New York last year.
Instructors and students alike shared fond memories of partaking in the various extracurricular activities at Hillhouse. Sebastian Gonzalez, a current student at Hillhouse, plays with the drumline for Hillhouse’s marching band and was there on Tuesday to represent the band. The marching band attends Yale sports games, where Gonzalez was able to see marching bands for universities outside Connecticut.
“Connecticut isn’t really a ‘band’ state,” Gonzalez said while tapping his drumsticks on the table. “So we get to see cultures from outside of Connecticut at the games.”
“I liked the band and the athletics,” Ciaran Borne-Brennan, an incoming ninth grader from Westville, said later. Borne-Brennan plays saxophone and is excited to continue playing next year. He and his father, Liam Brennan, were especially taken by the school’s marching band, seeing them perform weeks prior at Westville Art Walk.
These memories and experiences bring alumni back to the school and keep them involved with the community, participants in Tuesday’s fair said.
Pamela Campbell, the school librarian, represented Hillhouse’s Educators Rising chapter, which encourages students to pursue careers in education. Campbell talked about a former member of Educators Rising who is now a teaching intern in New Haven alongside enrolling at Quinnipiac University.
And Lisa Rodriguez, who leads the JROTC, reminisced about a yearly military ball in which former students come to connect with one another again. Rodriguez has students from every one of her 19 years of teaching who come back and visit her.
“I like the family we have developed, that we still keep in touch,” Rodriguez said. “It almost makes me cry talking about it, because it’s so nice that I have such a nice core of the program.”
Johnson herself played softball for Hillhouse when she was in high school back in 2002. Now, she can’t believe that she’s back at the school as a co-worker with her former softball coach.
“I always say, ‘be the person you needed growing up,’” Johnson said. “And now I’m here. It’s really full circle.”
While incoming students, faculty, and alumni gathered in the Hillhouse hallway, soft jazz played in the background and teachers passed out home-made cookies.
Eventually, when parents and students walked out of the school and down the street, Hillhouse principal Antoine Billy stuck his head out the front door. He shouted after them:
“Thank you for coming!”
At Tuesday's fair.
Brown Girls Cooking and Conversation club booklet.