Allan Appel File Photo
Fair Haven School Principal Monica Morales.
Quinnipiac School Principal Monica Morales and West Rock Principal Yolanda Jones-Generette will head up Fair Haven School and Celentano Magnet School, respectively, starting this July.
The New Haven Board of Education voted for their transfers on Monday evening, alongside the promotion of Marisol Rodriguez to principal of Columbus Family Academy.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) shuttered Quinnipiac and West Rock STREAM Academy after the city health department found that the two schools could not reopen safely during the Covid-19 pandemic. The district promised not to lay off any staff. Students transferred to new schools via lottery.
Aliyya Swaby File Photo
New Celentano Principal West Rock Principal Yolanda Jones-Generette.
Since the Board of Education already knows Morales and Jones-Generette, Superintendent Iline Tracey did not bring them into the virtual meeting to introduce themselves. Morales is filling the shoes of beloved principal Heriberto Cordero, who announced in March that he is moving to Pennsylvania.
Rodriguez did introduce herself to the board. She spoke about her long history with the to-be-renamed school, Christopher Columbus Family Academy. She attended the school herself as a child, graduated from NHPS and currently lives in Fair Haven. She has served as vice principal of Columbus Family Academy in the past, before the district transferred her briefly to Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy to support Mia Edmonds-Duff as a Spanish-speaking administrator.
“A teacher wrote to me recently, ‘You’re coming home.’ That’s how I feel. I’m coming back to where it all began for me,” Rodriguez said.