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Booker T. Washington Academy Executive Director John Taylor.
John Taylor is waiting on the governor for some help keeping his teachers and students safe.
Taylor is the executive director of Booker T. Washington Academy, a K‑8 charter school based on New Haven’s State Street and Hamden’s Circular Drive. He’s knee deep in preparations for the first day of the new school year on Aug. 30, preparations focused on adapting to the resurgence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
About 80 percent of his teachers are vaccinated against Covid-19. Taylor would like help requiring all of them to get the vaccine.
He needs Gov. Ned Lamont to issue a mandate for that to happen. Emergency powers granted during the pandemic would allow the governor to issue a mandate without legislative approval.
“We need to hear from the governor,” Taylor said Tuesday during an appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
“I would love there to be a mandate,” he said. “It gives people a sense of safety to know that people are vaccinated.”
Lamont was asked about a possible teacher mandate around the same time as Taylor’s interview, during an unrelated press conference (about the earned income tax credit) across town at Junta for Progressive Action on Grand Avenue.
Lamont responded that in general he prefers incentives to mandates. However, he said, he will keep a mask mandate in place at K‑12 schools through at least Sept. 30. (“I’m hoping we may not need it. I’m hoping that the 30th is good, but we need to make sure we have the flexibility to act if we need to after Oct. 1.”)
And Lamont promised to have an answer on a teacher-vaccine mandate as early as Wednesday. (Update: Lamont did announce a mandate order on Thursday.)
“I think it makes an awful lot of sense,” he said. “But it requires a little bit of discussion and that’s what we’re doing.” Los Angeles, Chicago and New York are among the governments that have issued teacher vaccine mandates.
New Haven teachers union President David Cicarella said he supports a “reasonable compromise” that pairs a mandate with medical or religious exemptions or weekly testing for teachers with other reasons for opting out.
“Fingers Crossed”
Under Taylor’s leadership, Booker T. Academy returned to hybrid in-person when school reopened in the fall of 2020, months before the regular public schools did. Booker T will reopen this time with no option for hybrid or remote learning on Aug. 30. Students will remain in pods/cohorts, as they did last year, meaning the same subset of each grade will take all its classes together. That way, if someone contracts Covid, only that pod may have to learn from home temporarily.
Taylor said he’s “optimistic” but “with fingers crossed” about handling the Covid resurgence.
Taylor oversaw the launch of Booker T. seven years ago, an effort organized through Varick AME Zion Church. It has grown to 540 students, 84 percent of whom are Black.
More than half the teachers, as well, are Black, a high rate compared to other Connecticut schools, and a product of a deliberate recruiting effort that includes outreach to historically Black colleges and universities, Taylor said.
“You can’t be what you don’t see,” Taylor said. “We’re asking our students to aspire to greatness,” and to consider becoming professional educators themselves. “They need to see people who look like them.”
At the same time, Taylor said, his top consideration in hiring teachers is to find people who are “super-competent” and “care deeply about children,” more than racial background. Teachers work a longer day at Booker T, from 7:15 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. They also get more breaks — two “preps,” rather than the traditional one prep, to afford more time to catch their breath and work collaboratively with colleagues.
Click on the video to watch the full interview with John Taylor on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven,” in which he spoke at length about the school’s philosophy, his career as an educator, the role of charter schools, as well as keeping students and teachers safe amid Covid-19.
Sophie Sonnenfeld contributed reporting.