Melissa Bailey Photo
Six months after leaving her beat as a schools reporter for the New Haven Register, Abbe Smith returned Monday to the Board of Education — this time as its incoming spokesperson.
Smith (pictured), who’s 33, was approved by the school board Monday as the district’s new director of communications. She’ll start work Aug. 6 with a salary of $74,000.
She is the second former Register schools and City Hall reporter to be hired as a city government spokesperson. Elizabeth Benton, who covered education and City Hall for the Register, now works in City Hall as the mayor’s press aide. (Smith had replaced Benton on the Board of Ed/City Hall beat at the Register.)
Smith left the Register in February to take a $48,000 job as a press aide for the Senate Democrats in Hartford. She held that job for about six months before giving notice. A resident of Fair Haven Heights, she can now look forward to a much shorter commute.
The school district has been operating without a spokesman since Christopher Hoffman resigned after losing his temper and grabbing an Independent reporter’s camera at the Clemente School last December. The incident was captured on video. Hoffman, too, had previously worked as a New Haven Register reporter.
In nominating Smith for the job, schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo commended her “widespread experience” in reporting, communications and social media. She worked at the Register for five years after writing for other papers.
After the board approved hiring her, Smith stepped forward to a podium to introduce herself.
“It’s great to be back in New Haven,” she said.
Chairman Carlos Torre put her in the hot seat with an unexpected question: What are the pluses and minuses of New Haven’s school system?
Smith credited the city’s “exciting, cutting-edge reform movements” and stopped there.
“You’re not going to touch the other side,” noted Torre. He agreed to let her off the hook.