Allan Appel Photo
Melissa Roman got up near dawn Monday to join a line to try for the second year in a row to get her son Luis into kindergarten at their neighborhood school. Ray Saracco was on line even earlier at 5:20 a.m. so that his Isabella could attend the Worthington Hooker kindergarten. Both struck out.
Roman (pictured) and Saracco were part of a tense scene of wet and bedraggled parents in a line snaking out from Board of Ed headquarters in the rain in an annual ritual of public education desperation.
Like rock groupies committed to their favorite band, some had been queuing up since Sunday mid-afternoon for a prized spot on line once the doors opened for kindergarten registration for the coming year. They endured not only pouring rain but round-robin runs to the bathroom at Union Station, in a quest to get kids into the neighborhood school.
Some came away empty handed, but not without hope.
Registration began at 8:30 Monday, but the doors to 54 Meadow St. at least were opened by 6:30. When the water-logged parents were allowed in the lobby, as in a busy deli, each parent was given a number. Up to 100 anxious parents stood on line.
Saracco’s number was 57, Roman’s, 64. They both live in the neighborhood districts where they wanted to enroll their rising kindergarteners. Roman in fact has a current fifth-grader and a recent graduate from Nathan Hale.
She thought getting her Luis in would be a no-brainer. Especially since there would be 52 spots in the two kindergartens. Only a dozen or so people stood before her in line. (Distributed numbers began in the 40s.)
With some 52 spots in the Hooker kindergartens, Saracco (pictured above) too felt pretty good about his prospects. A true neighborhood boy who grew up playing in some of the very church buildings that made way for the new Hooker School, he became a fireman and community activist. In 2008 he and Kevin Donohue, a fellow fireman, were elected Democratic Party Ward 10 co-chairs. His sister’s kids go to Hooker.
“I’m a diehard neighborhood guy,” he said.
What Saracco was not aware of until this very morning was that as many as 40 of those 52 Hooker spots had already taken in advance. They went to in-district kids already registered in New Haven Public Schools pre‑K and school readiness programs.
Roman found out that the pre-registration was a route to early kindergarten registration only last month.
In fact this is the second year she has tried to get Luis into the neighborhood school. She failed last year. The system offered her the options of Strong and Fair Haven. She declined and home-schooled Luis for a year. Saracco’s Isabella was at St. Rita’s, a Catholic pre‑K in Hamden. So they did not have the preferential route.
Still, both parents were dismayed when their turn came to talk to Board of Education staff. They learned after only 12 or 13 people preceded them, all the slots in both Hooker and Hale had filled.
They were both offered kindergarten slots at other schools, including Celentano, Fair Haven, and Strong.
“I want to know every person on that list!” Saracco declared. “You show up early in the morning. What more can you do! It’s terrible. Here it is, a lifelong neighborhood kid.”
Saracco asked for a private meeting with Robert Canelli, the supervisor of magnet schools and registration. It was granted. (A reporter was barred from the room.)
On leaving the meeting, Saracco was so upset he was shaking. He called his wife. “Better come down here,” he said.
“I’m outraged because they can at least let people know how many spots are taken, not to waste the whole day. I’m going to tell the mayor. This system has to change. I mean maybe I’m out,” he said, but he didn’t’ want other neighborhood families to go through what he just had.
As Roman listened to Saracco’s quiet, but gathering storm of upset, Saracco added: “Those [preregistered] kids, not one better be out of district. Or there will be a lawsuit. I’ll send my daughter Isabella to Foote and New Haven will foot the bill, no pun intended.”
Roman said she would join in the lawsuit. But not quite yet.
Instead, they both decided to go upstairs and make their cases to higher Bord of Ed authorities. After trying the superintendent, who was out, Roman connected with Danny Diaz, one of the BOE’s parent advocates, and went off with him.
Saracco sought out and found his old high school buddy, Board of Ed Chief Operating Officer Will Clark.
“I’m a little calmer,” Saracco responded after the lengthy meeting. Clark assured him that all the kids on the list for Hooker are from Hooker’s area.
What was Saracco going to do now? He said he would go back downstairs and settle for Celentano, with the hope that a spot opens up at Hooker before school starts in the fall.
In a subsequent interview, Clark said, “I committed to Ray I’ll confirm the list. If there is anyone whose information is inaccurate, they’ll be moved out. After registration, we literally knock on doors.”
“He’s one of the nicest men I’ve met in my life. But it is what it is; 52 is 52.”
Asked about the tense atmosphere downstairs of frantic parents, Clark was at pains to point out that physical in person showing up was only one of three legs of a stool that NHPS uses to register new families.
Parents can also sign up for aggressively marketed magnet schools or preregister their children in NHPS-approved pre-Ks as routes to kindergartens, he said. That would lower the number of people registering in person.
Student recruitment coordinator Debbie Breland suggested somewhat more than 300 people were expected to register for kindergarten between today and start of school. There are currently 1,583 kids in NHPS kindergartens, and the pre-Ks in the Elm City are the largest in the state, said Clark.
It’s There Somewhere?
Clark was asked about the complaint expressed by Saracco and other parents that they simply did not know that registration in NHPS pre-Ks offered preferential routes to the kindergarten slots for in-district families.
Clark said that information is on the NHPS website under kindergarten registration guidelines. He went to his computer to demonstrate. He couldn’t find it.
“If it needs to be refined,” he said. “We’ll take that responsibility.”
Asked later, Breland said the information does not appear on the website because “the list could change from year to year.”
Another parent spoken to, who preferred not to be identified, said he first received a list of pre-Ks in a Board of Ed packet distributed at a Hooker open house. He claimed that the packet included no mention of the pre‑K advantage.
“I respect it all,” said Clark referring to parents’ rights and desires to make the choice best for their kids. “All I can do is open their eyes and hearts to other opportunities” to enroll at schools other than Hooker or Hale.
Reached later, Saracco said that when he went downstairs, Celentano was filled up. He was offered only the Strong School and Fair Haven. He took the Strong School. That way he’s at least he’s in the system, in case a transfer, on a first-come first served basis, becomes available.
Melissa Roman (pictured) had what appears to be a more successful meeting “Diaz said I should have a chance to get my son in.” He said, ‘You’re in the district, you shouldn’t have a problem.’ Seeing that I do have [another child] there. I was really happy with him.”
Saracco said that as a fireman with flexible schedule, he’d been planning to pick up his daughter and his sister’s kids at Hooker. With Isabella not getting in, the impact on the family and plans is significant, he said.
“I don’t know what to tell my daughter. She’s been looking forward to going there [to Hooker]. I don’t’ know what I’m going to tell her.”
For now he’s decided to say nothing.