Melissa Bailey Photo
Sue Weisselberg reunites with Superintendent Reggie Mayo.
She rebuilt the schools. Now she’s returning to New Haven in the hopes of rebuilding kids’ connections to social services.
Sue Weisselberg, the city’s former school construction czar, was named this week to a new post in the city school district. Call her the “wraparound services czar.”
The job, which pays $133,000, was created through a grant from the First Niagara Bank to guide the expansion of the city’s Boost! initiative. The program, currently being piloted at five schools, connects kids with after-school activities as well as social and emotional supports. The goal of the program is to build so-called “wraparound services” that tend to kids’ social and emotional needs, helping them deal with the non-academic barriers that get in the way of success in school.
For example, kids at Metropolitan Business Academy are now taking free boxing lessons after school and tackling social problems through a freshman class run by the Post-Traumatic Stress Center in East Rock.
Weisselberg, who’s 57 and lives in Westville, now has the task of expanding the program beyond the five pilot schools. She begins her new job on Feb. 6.
She is “no stranger” to the school district, noted schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo at Monday night’s school board meeting, where members approved hiring her. She led the city’s $1.5 billion school construction initiative for 14 years. As the program wound down, she left her post in 2009 to become chief legal counsel to the House Democratic Caucus in Hartford.
Mayo said he was “happy to recommend a very competent and capable person” for the new job.
Weisselberg said after rebuilding so many city schools, “it’s really exciting to go back and work on what happens inside those schools and link those inside the community.”
“I’m excited about engaging everyone to improve the students’ learning and their lives,” she said.
Her departure comes as her boss, state Speaker of the House Chris Donovan, seeks to leave the legislature in pursuit of a U.S. Congressional seat, prompting some of his staffers to find other work. Weisselberg said her return to New Haven wasn’t directly due to Donovan’s plans. She said she had other offers to stay at the Capitol, but she reflected on what kind of work she wanted to do.
“I really thought going forward about what would give me the greatest satisfaction,” she said. “At the end of the day, it was thinking that if we can reach more students and families — that to me was the most gratifying.”