Facing Down Phones, Riverside Adapts

A trio of 3D printers worked at lightning speed making hydroponic-friendly pots in Riverside teacher Camar Graves’ classroom — as the alternative-public-academy educator worked just as diligently finding novel ways to connect with his students at a time when many remain glued to their phones and struggling to focus.

Riverside Academy at 103 Hallock Ave. in the Hill is New Haven’s last standing alternative high school for at-risk students.

As the current school year passes its halfway point, four educators at Riverside spoke with the Independent about the school year so far — and shared thoughts on how they and their students are adapting to the impacts to education post-remote learning after spending the first year-plus of the pandemic learning online.

The educators included math teachers Kim Angotta and Melvin Campbell, technology teacher Camar Graves, and history teacher Pete Chase. The four were recently interviewed by this reporter on site during pre-arranged class breaks. 

During separate interviews with the Independent, the four Riverside teachers spoke about the key issues they face, such as students’ increased phone usage and rollover gaps in academic achievement. The teachers also highlighted which classroom lessons have been most effective at engaging their students, many of whom are enrolled at the school due to concerns with their previous academic settings and personal struggles and are in need of transitional supports.

The four teachers’ concerns echo those expressed by New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) educators from across the district who in previous interviews have also spoken up about the challenges presented by increased phone usage and achievement gaps among students.

Off The Phones, & In The Dirt

Chase has taught in middle schools and high schools across New Haven since 2001. Currently a history teacher at Riverside, he described himself as a ​“product of alternative education” as he went to an out-of-town alternative school in the 80’s and graduated in five years. Before working at several New Haven schools, Chase worked in Branford and Guilford. He said he’s happiest at Riverside in comparison to past jobs he had in suburban districts because he aims to serve as a role model whose success began with an alternative education. 

In addition to teaching history, Chase in recent years has also been introducing his students to activities like hydroponics and aquaponics.

In his classroom, which is full of historical memorabilia like his Navy jacket and several authentic decorative souvenirs from places like South Korea and Africa, Chase also has two large fish tanks, a plant nursery, and several planter boxes full of sprouting vegetables and produce, all of which surrounds student desks. 

He told the Independent he’s planning on starting a student club made up of interested Riverside students to accomplish beautification projects in and outside the school through hydroponic work. 

In his classroom Chase grows produce like cucumbers, chives, okra, basil, and spinach. He grows the plants first in his plant nursery then, once they sprout, he repots that produce in a rock-based planter. 

To spark student interest he typically works on caring for the plants during his classes as students work independently or in between lessons. 

He informs his students about the personal benefits of a hobby in hydroponics like the therapeutic gains that come from planting and watching after aquatic life. When Chase’s students become distracted during class or need to cool down, Chase said, he encourages them to pull up a chair to the classroom tanks full of hundreds of fish and to watch the fish for some time to decompress or set their sights on something other than their cellphones. 

“If things are going south for them they can turn around and take a bookcase and turn it into food,” Chase said. ​“I want to get them off those phones and playing in dirt.” 

This has helped students to refocus and later return to their work in a better head space or keep out of trouble when in the heat of the moment, Chase said. 

In a classroom storage closet, Chase has stored away a dozen buckets that he plans to work with students on making into a hydroponic system in the school’s foyer. The buckets all have lids with pre-made holes that Chase plans to weave together into one hydroponic unit. It will then use the mineral nutrient water of the foyer’s koi fish fountain to feed the plants and will be washed back into the fountain at the end. 

So far, Chase has invested in the hydroponic work out of his own pocket. He said he’s working with the school’s administration to gain funding for the in- and after-school work which he hopes will have a impact on a large population of Riverside’s students. 

Chase said his students also regularly give him suggestions for produce they’d like him to grow in class, like strawberries, asparagus, and broccoli.

In recent weeks, Chase has partnered with Computer Applications teacher Camar Graves, who has a classroom equipped with 3D printers. 

The two worked together to create a 3D-printed planter model that they hope to use for a beautification project in classrooms around the school. 

The 3D-printed planter model attaches to a wall or vertical surface and can be connected with others to create a self-sustaining watering system. 

Chase hopes to grow and harvest the produce at the school to provide free organically grown foods to students and their families. 

Chase and Graves are also discussing the possibility of collecting plastic bottles at the school to convert into 3D printer filament. 

Chase added that the collaboration will help him to reach more students. While many of his students have full-time jobs after school he said there are also many students who struggle to socialize with peers outside of school and could benefit from such an after school venture. 

While standing in front of a poster that reads ​“I am here to educate you not argue with you,” Chase agreed with his colleagues that students’ socialization skills have been affected by the extended remote-only learning era. ​“They don’t know what’s appropriate and what’s not, it’s been lost,” he said. ​“The boundaries have been really blurred.” 

He said he does, however, feel equipped to deal with student behavioral concerns thanks to the school’s increase in support staff. 

3D Printing + Hydroponics

Computer applications teacher Camar Graves has been teaching at Riverside for six years, and in NHPS for a total of 15. 

He teaches his students the practical uses of several forms of technology beyond social media and TikTok. His teaching method is highly experiential and exposes his students to topics like 3D printing, artificial intelligence (AI), technology ethics, and coding.

Last marking period, Graves’ students learned about robots and their use in everyday life. Now they are diving deeper and learning not just about supervised robots but also automatous machinery and robots. 

“The more you expose to them, the better chance of reaching them,” Graves said. 

Graves also noted that phone usage has been a distraction in the classroom for students. He added that he uses his class as an opportunity to educate students about developing healthy habits with technology and phones and explains to them how building on such skills now will be beneficial for them in life after high school.

When his students are practicing ​“anti-social behaviors” like texting in class and not participating in small group discussions, Graves teaches his students how to multitask on their phone by listening to music while also reading a class article. 

He also makes personal connections with his students as a father of three who lives in New Haven and grew up struggling to ask and accept help. 

Graves’ desk is decorated with students’ creations of 3D knickknacks and posters of music icons like the late rapper Take Off, historical figures like Nelson Mandela, and students drawings. 

“They lost years of socialization. Some skipped from sixth grade to now being in ninth,” Graves said. ​“I see that immaturity fading as the school year goes on.” 

On this reporter’s visit to Riverside last Friday, Graves practiced making different sized hydroponic planters with the school’s 3D printer. 

The first planter model he made took six hours to complete. The planter models he made on Friday took only two hours because of the significantly smaller sizing. 

"Personal Finance Should Be Taught In Every School"

Mel Campbell, who has been teaching math at Riverside for 12 years, teaches 11th and 12th grade courses in Algebra 2 and personal finance. 

He introduced the personal finance course to the school last year to help his students ​“learn to avoid my mistakes I made with credit.”

Currently Campbell’s class is learning about how to file taxes and fill out their own W4 forms and what to do with the W2 forms that come in the mail from their first jobs.

“Every math class I’ve ever taught I’ve been asked, ​‘When I’m going to need this?’ ” Campbell recalled. 

In his personal finance class Campbell never receives that question because the students are interested in learning about credit, savings, setting up a bank account, and learning about why taxes are taken from their checks. 

Most of Campbell’s senior students are working jobs to provide for themselves. As a senior advisor, Campbell said several of his students come to him asking him what they are supposed to do with their W2 forms from their jobs. 

Campbell uses an education program by Turbo Tax that allows his students to file taxes with practice W2 forms. 

“I was thinking about what I needed and wanted more of when I was in high school,” he said.

He also dials into student interest in the classroom and teaches units on sports and fashion contracts. 

Campbell recalled not learning anything about credit until it came time for him to finance his first car. He regularly tells students about that experience. He also shares about his first credit card experience in college and helps his students to learn from his mistakes. 

“Not everyone goes to trade school or college, but everyone needs to know about credit and taxes,” he said. 

At the start of the school year, Campbell hosted mock job interviews with his students and taught them how to set up direct deposit. He hopes in the future to partner with local resources to have bank representatives visit his students and talk about opening bank accounts. 

Campbell said he hopes to help his students build a strong financial foundation while young.

“Personal finance should be taught in every school. It’s needed,” Campbell said. 

Campbell added that Riverside’s principal Derek Stephenson is very open minded and approachable, which made introducing the class easy.

When Campbell introduced the course last year he taught one class. This year student interest has made for two personal finance courses. 

Campbell’s class is discussion-based and utilizes Google Classroom to help students ease into improving their communication skills. This allows for students who are more comfortable on a phone or computer to still do and submit their work digitally. 

Students in personal finance are also given extra credit if they use part of their class time to fill out a job application. 

Remote Learning Fallout: Too Much Time On Phones

Math educator Kim Angotta, who has been teaching in New Haven for 13 years, teaches Algebra 1 and Geometry to freshmen and sophomores at Riverside.

Since returning to in-person instruction, Angotta said she has noticed that her first year students have had to bear the brunt of the impacts that came from increased isolation during the height of the pandemic. Those students now struggle more than she’s seen in the past with academics and social skills, she said.

Despite being half way through the school year, when Angotta moves on in her math instruction she finds herself having to teach her students lessons they were supposed to have learned while in middle school, like how to count on a number line to add and how to subtract positive and negative numbers. 

“It’s like we’re building on quicksand,” she said. 

While teaching students lessons about distance and midpoint formulas and linear equations, Angotta tries to make up for students’ academic gaps by working in real life comparisons to help students better understand. For topics like slope, Angotta walks students through measuring the steepness and incline of handicap ramps that can safely support people using wheelchairs. Typically Angotta refers to positive and negative slopes as hiking up a mountain and down a ski slope. 

Other real life examples include carpentry references for measurements of things like wood, pipes, and buildings to understand distance and midpoint. 

Additional concerns for Angotta included students’ struggles with identifying division and multiplication signs on calculators and an over-arching fear of answering questions incorrectly in front of their peers.

To tackle these issues Angotta said she prioritizes building a trusting bond with her students to get through to them with lessons. She has also established a reward system for all student participation to get students invested in their education. She said she regularly hears from students: ​“Ms., when you explain it to me, I get it.”

She also is honest with her students when they ask her questions like, ​“When am I going to need algebra?” She tells her students that math is ​“teaching you to think” and how to follow a formula and procedure and execute it by following its specific rules. ​“At any job, I tell them, they’re going to have to think and think critically,” she said. 

Angotta also has an annual lesson with her students during the winter holiday season that requires them to make a Thanksgiving dinner menu with a set budget. The students then use local coupon books to create a menu of food items to be deducted from their set budget. 

“Ninth graders are pretty raw to start with,” she said. ​“But now they’re procedurally challenged because they were home for so long.” 

Phone usage is a huge concern of hers, Angotta said. Before the Covid pandemic hit Angotta said Riverside was able to get most students to voluntarily surrender their phones at the start of the school day. Now those behaviors have been reversed and students have become more attached to their phones, she said.

“They’re [phones] so distracting. They’re either watching videos, listening to music, or texting to coordinate fights in the bathrooms,” she said. 

Since the return from remote learning, Riverside has implemented ​“bathroom escorts” to walk students to and from bathrooms to avoid arranged fights or student meet-ups, she added. ​“They [escorts] help a lot,” she said. 

Despite the challenges, Angotta said seeing her students progress is what keeps her motivated. Over the years she has also established mentor-like connections with students whom she teaches to use education as a ​“way out.” 

See below for other recent Independent articles about teaching, reading, and working inside New Haven Public Schools classrooms.

• Refugee Reader Brings Courage To Class
• Middle-School GSA Finds Its Way
• Student Council Gets Down To Governing
• In Class, High-Schoolers Learn To Lead
• High-Schoolers Get Tips From Future Selves
• TAG Turns Into ​“Wellness Wednesday”
• Volcano Pose Helps Students Erupt, Cool Off
• Gateway Chief Uncovers Student Superpowers
• New Tutoring Site Focuses On Phonics
• Race Finds A Place In The Classroom
• ​“Little Engineers” Build Boats For Pirate Pete
• Seeking Stability, Cross Principal Hits The Halls
• Hispanic Heritage Takes Center Stage At Career High Fest
• Teacher Tim Takes To TikTok
• Amid Shortage, Teachers Cite Disrespect