Aliyya Swaby Photo
Senior Green: Students “worried” about changes.
The Board of Education voted to approve David Diah as the third principal of Hillhouse High School — less than a week after appointing someone else to that position.
The last-minute switch up came at Monday night’s regularly scheduled board meeting at Martinez School, the last before the school year begins next Monday.
Students said they want better communication from the board and that last-minute changes are clouding their back-to-school excitement and leaving them without a feeling of “stability.”
Board of Education members voted unanimously Monday night to approve the personnel changes. Board members Daisy Gonzalez and Alicia Caraballo, who have in the past been critical of the district’s hiring process, were not at Monday’s meeting and did not call in to vote.
Hillhouse, one of the city’s bigger high schools, has been broken up into three mini-schools, and only last week was a change in one of the academies, to an arts curriculum, publicly announced for the coming year.
Val Jean Belton was tapped last week to head the new arts academy at Hillhouse and replace outgoing Principal Kermit Carolina, who took a position in the district central office. But when the year starts, Belton will instead be the interim principal of Co-op High School. After officials declined to discuss the reasons, board members spilled Monday that Co-op Principal Frank Costanzo is leaving the position to be considered for one in another district.
A Hillhouse graduate and teacher for 27 years, Belton (pictured) had been the assistant principal at Co-op High School. Her salary will be $147,285.
Aliyya Swaby File Photo
Diah (pictured) had in late June been appointed Hillhouse assistant principal in the school’s “Law, Public Safety and Health Academy” under Principal Zakiyyah Baker, after serving as an administrative intern at the academy last school year. The board Monday approved Harries’ suggestion to have him now take over Baker’s position on an interim basis.
“It seems strange. Just a few months ago, I was up here” being confirmed as the assistant principal of Hillhouse, he said Monday. ““Now I’m told, I’m the principal of one of the most historic schools in the district.” Diah said he looks forward to the opportunity.
His salary as principal will be $125,952; he would have made $111,841 as assistant principal.
The Hillouse College Career Readiness Academy, which Carolina headed, will phase out after this upcoming academic year. SMART, the new arts academy, will begin in ninth grade this September and add a new grade every year afterward. Principal Baker will head both academies.
At first, Harries attributed the personnel changes to the fact that Costanzo was going to get knee surgery on the first day of school and could not start the year as Co-op principal.
In a public comment session, Rev. Boise Kimber (pictured), a regular Board of Ed attendee, pressed Harries on whether Belton and Diah’s interim positions will last the whole year.
Harries responded that the contracts are for a full year but that it “remains to be seen how long Mr. Costanzo’s absence is going to last. We’re not sure that’s he’s coming back at that point.”
“I want you to say that he’s got another job and that he’s not coming back,” Kimber responded.
Board of Ed President Carlos Torre (at center in photo) confirmed Kimber’s statement that Costanzo is in fact being considered for another job outside of New Haven.
“We cannot talk about it in public because the other Board of Ed has not made a decision yet,” he said. “We cannot say anything further on it.”
Harries said he does not plan to hire a Hillhouse assistant principal to replace Diah in the next week.
“We have enough leadership capacity there we think … to make sure the school is opened effectively,” he said. “If we want to put an assistant principal there, we want to make sure we take the time and choose one.”
Hillhouse students are worried about the board’s decisions on their school’s leadership. Non-voting student board member Coral Ortiz, a rising junior at Hillhouse, said in a student report to the board that her classmates “felt like they weren’t communicated to well. They weren’t sure exactly what was going on.”
She said many students “feel like they’re in an experiment … A lot of students don’t have stability in their homes so they need stability in their schools.”
And rising senior Dazjia Green (pictured at the top of the story) addressed the board in a public comment. Students have been “more worried about the changes” than excited about a new school year, she said.
She told the Independent afterward that she didn’t know the school was going to have an arts academy until she read news accounts of last week’s board vote.
Green said she doesn’t think the academy system helps make the school feel smaller. “I just feel like it’s divided, not smaller,” she said.
Harries said underclassmen were notified about the arts academy — but not upperclassmen who already “have their senior classes … That’s the nature of a phase out-phase in, focusing communication to those students who are impacted by them.”
He said students communicate through social media “so quickly that it’s a challenge to be ahead of them … Ideally we would like all stakeholders to be hearing things directly from us.”
Principal Baker said she plans to meet with Ortiz, Green and other students Tuesday to discuss their concerns.
“The administrators at Hillhouse are trying to be conscious of all the emotions involved,” she said. Staff as well as students are “concerned” about the upcoming year.
The board approved other administrative changes Monday as well. It appointed Lynn Brantley the interim supervisor of language arts and reading, Joseph Johnson as the assistant principal of Hill Central Music Academy and, Linda O’Brien the assistant principal of Quinnipiac School.
And Abbe Smith, the board’s director of communications, is resigning as of Sept. 17 to head the state Board of Education’s communications team. Harries said he will start looking for her replacement.