A city that has named schools after a labor crusader, a teacher, a principal, a party boss, a governor, and a mayor broke ground with a new idea Wednesday: naming a school after a district superintendent.
Officials grabbed shovels to officially dedicate the latest school rebuilding project: the $43 million Dr. Reginald Mayo Early Childhood School, formerly known as the Helene Grant School at 185 Goffe St.
Mayo retired earlier this year after 46 years in the school system, the last 21 as schools superintendent. He oversaw the $1.6 billion effort to renovate or rebuild almost all city schools.
He and others present couldn’t recall the last time New Haven, or any nearby city, named a school after a superintendent.
Mayo was thrilled with the honor.
Or, as he put it to the crowd assembled for the official dedication, “I was happy and excited and ecstatic as anything!”
Officially, it takes a committee of the Board of Education to decide after whom to name a school.
In practice, it can take a combination of timing or a connection to the school being dedicated. When the late Democratic Party leader Vincent Mauro died, the next school to go online bore his name. Same with the late state Rep. John Martinez. The city named a new school in the Hill after former Mayor John Daniels. (He’d already had a street named after him.)
Other named dedicatees earn their spots by making history from the outside: crusading labor leader and abolitionist Augusta Lewis Troup, for instance.
Or they get recognized for work in the trenches. Isadore Wexler was a beloved Newhallville principal. After he retired, his old Winchester School bore his name.
Helene Grant taught in city schools for 50 years. She was New Haven’s third-ever black teacher. The school on Goffe Street, formerly an elementary school, bore her name; then the city built a new nearby elementary school that bore both her and Wexler’s names.
Ken Boroson Architects
Now the city is tearing down the old Grant school to replace it with the 63,000-square-foot Mayo School, a central facility for a number of separate pre‑K programs serving 565 kids. Designed by architect Ken Boroson, it’s scheduled to open in December 2015.
At Wednesday afternoon’s dedication, Mayor John DeStefano spoke of the value of having a school building that “is not just cold, concrete, but actually has some humanity attached to it. To attach Doc [Mayo]‘s name and what he stood for and what he has fought for … animates and gives life to the great work that’s going to be going on here.”
He spoke of Helene Grant’s history. “We all stand on shoulders. Miss Grant was a pretty broad set of shoulders to be standing on.” (Click on the video at the top of the story to watch his remarks.)
Then he spoke of Mayo’s history, including the pre‑K expansion he oversaw. Mayo developed the state’s largest pre‑K program run by a public school district. That makes the naming of this school after Mayo fitting, DeStefano said.
“When I go by the building, I will beep my horn for you,” DeStefano promised Mayo.
DeStefano, who is retiring at year’s end after 20 years in office, was asked later if he’d like to see a school named after him some day. “My name is already on the plaques in all the schools,” he responded.
In fact, he said, he doesn’t want to see any buildings named after him. Some of his predecessors, in addition to Daniels, did receive such honors: Biagio DiLieto got City Hall, for instance; David Fitzgerald, the Hall of Records, Dick Lee both a highway and a mini-highway (Route 34) that never got completed. Asked why he’d like to forgo that honor, DeStefano said, “See my speech tonight.” (He’s speaking at a tribute dinner in his honor on the East Shore.)
Mayor-Elect Toni Harp spoke at the dedication of Mayo’s and DeStefano’s work as a team to rebuild schools and boost early education.
“Yes I will be standing on your broad shoulders, both of you,” she told them. “So bulk up!”
New Haven has no schools named after Mayo’s predecessors, such as Gerald Tirozzi and John Dow.
“Who would say no to having a school named after them? This isn’t something that happens to superintendents on a daily basis,” Mayo said at Wednesday’s dedication.
He spoke afterwards of seeing the honor as a validation of his 46 years of work in the public schools.
“It’s not like your name being on a memo,” he said. “It will be there forever. People will ask, ‘Who was Reggie Mayo?’ Hopefully someone will be around to say what I tried to do.”