Aliyya Swaby Photo
Galante: Please reconsider.
High School in the Community teaches its kid a “social justice” curriculum — one that the Board of Education would flunk because of how it handled major decisions affecting the school itself, in the view of some critics.
That argument came from some of the parents, teachers and students who showed up at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting at John Martinez School to weigh in, during the public comment period, on HSC’s future.
Most criticized the decision by Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries earlier this month to remove HSC’s three top administrators. (Read more about that here and here.)
After three years of a state-funded experiment overseen by the school district and run by the teachers union, HSC is losing its three top leaders — “Building Leader” (aka principal) Good, and Assistant Building Leaders (aka assistant principals) Cameo Thorne and Paulette Jackson. Harries and New Haven Federation of Teachers (NHFT) President Dave Cicarella decided to open the positions to teachers throughout the city, instead of from within the school. They argued that HSC should draw from a larger pool for its leaders.
The school community argued Monday night that the lack of consensus in making this decision violated the school’s social justice theme. The superintendent is also considering whether to allow the teachers union to continue running the school. (The union has been at odds with the teachers.)
Parent Patricia McKechnie also called it a “really big mistake” to remove the administrators best versed in the school’s mastery-based learning focus, which has students move to the next level once they have mastered the course materials, not necessarily at a specific time like the end of an academic year.
“This decision was based on incomplete and inaccurate information,” she said.
“The board does not have a recommendation from me on how to proceed at this point,” Harries said. He said he believes in mastery-based learning and in keeping the sense of community ingrained in HSC, but “we do need a significant focus on leadership in the school.”
Not everyone Monday spoke in favor of the school.
HSC parent Tonya Thomas said the school had retained her son in ninth grade for the second year. “He goes to school every day,” she said. “Now they’re saying a bunch of new teachers are coming into the school. He’s 17 in October. I want him to be in the grade its appropriate to be in. I also want him to learn.” She said she doesn’t want her son to graduate and have no prospects.
Zero of 44 students completed their freshman year at HSC under the first year of mastery learning, causing some parents and students to panic. That number rose, as people adjusted to the new system.
HSC students Sean Nelson (pictured) and Adelaine Khan-Asto spoke on behalf of the student body. More than a hundred students signed a petition saying they did not agree with the changes.
Nelson asked why Harries and Cicarella would make a “huge decision in my school” without asking “what stakeholders think.”
The newest board member, Kimberly Sullivan — a rising senior at Sound School—put in a word on behalf of HSC students. Four of her family members, including her parents, were students at HSC and felt they got the tools to be “successful citizens,” she said.
Sullivan said students need time to start showing results after the turnaround, since the school is now “setting standards that were disregarded before.”
The Board of Education is “not a wall,” she said. “We are individuals with our own ideas. We’re going to support each other through this discussion. It’s not a consensus necessarily.”
Harries said he made his “performance concerns clear” to administrators at the beginning of the year. He apologized if they “were not communicated to staff.” Harries has said he acted because absenteeism kept rising at HSC and graduation rates continued declining, along with the percentage of students on track to graduate. The four-year graduation rate dropped from 56.9 percent to 47.5 percent; college enrollment dropped from 69.2 percent to 57.8 percent in the experiment’s first two years. (Student, parent and staff satisfaction with the school increased, as measured by surveys.)
HSC parent Michelle Galante said she fears teachers will leave the school if it is no longer teacher-run. She asked Harries and the board to consider retaining that structure for the school. She also asked to increase the number of students and parents on the hiring committee.