Paul Bass Photo
Carolina greets guests to a backyard campaign event Sunday evening.
Not only are more students reaching graduation at Hillhouse High School; they are also staying in college longer.
Kermit Carolina revealed that information at a backyard meet-and-greet in Westville Sunday evening for his Democratic mayoral campaign.
He mentioned those facts as part of a pitch that he is the most qualified of the four Democrats competing in the Sept. 10 Democratic mayoral primary based on his performance the past three years as principal of Hillhouse High School.
“I’m managing and leading change every day in one of the most challenging neighborhoods in the city,” Carolina declared.
Some 35 neighbors and campaign supporters …
… including prolific online news commenter Three-Fifths and Edgewood activist Eli Greer (pictured ) …
… gathered at the home of attorney Bob Pellegrino (at left in photo with Carolina), who introduced the candidate to the crowd. Pellegrino said he has known and been friendly with Carolina for over two decades and always admired his commitment to young people.
Carolina stressed the importance of addressing the problems of young people growing up in difficult surroundings in New Haven. He spoke of how he has experienced the city’s challenges from different perspectives: He was raised by a single mother in the Elm Haven projects. He became a school principal; he and his wife, director of human resources at Naugatuck Valley Community College, live in upper Westville and feel the pressures of paying the city’s high taxes while preparing to send their two boys to college, he said.
As Hillhouse’s principal, “I’m surrounded by four of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city,” Carolina remarked. “Some of the students who come through the door, it’s challenging. I see where our young people are going astray.”
“I feel that I’m the most experienced candidate,” Carolina said. “Why do I say that? First thing, I think that none of the other candidates have managed more than 15 people. I’ve managed probably over 1,500 people on a daily basis … I have a little under 1,000 students. I have over 100 teachers in my building. I have paraprofessionals, security, police officers, cafeteria workers, deans …
“We’ve shown results. In the three short years I’ve been at HIllhouse, we have decreased the drop-out rate by 33 percent. …. We’ve increased our graduation rate from 42 percent to 57 recent and counting … We have tripled the amount of students who have passed the Advanced Placement exams. We have tripled the amount of parents in the building.”
He has now just received “some other great news,” Carolina said. “Our college persistence rate — meaning the amount of students that stay in college after year one — has increased from 68 percent to 82 percent.”
Former neighborhood Alderwoman Nancy Ahern (pictured) asked Carolina how many assistant principals Hillhouse has. The school has reduced the number from eight to five, Carolina responded.
Ahern said she believes the school needs just one.
“Have you ever run a school?” Carolina asked her.
“I went to a school — called Hillhouse,” Ahern responded. “It had a principal and a dean” back then.
Carolina said he agrees the number should be further reduced. He said he does believe the school needs more than one assistant principal; times have changed over the decades since Ahern’s day, he said, with students coming in with greater challenges.
He identified two ways to reduce further the number of assistant principals.
One way: Slice off the part of the job description that deals with “school climate,” or misbehavior. Rather than paying one assistant principal $125,000 a year for that aspect of the job, he can find two qualified “community members” to handle it for a total of $67,500, he said. He said he has started to do that with “dean” positions.
A second way: Stop “the dance of the lemons.” Carolina used that term to describe the practice of shifting underperforming assistant principals around to different schools rather than trying to fire them. He said he’d seek to end that costly practice.