Jacob Cohn Photo
Nilda Aponte and N’Zinga Shani discuss “The Educational Agenda.”
Nilda Aponte offered four reasons she loves New Haven Promise: Her four children in New Haven public schools. She wants to send them to college.
“I’m like, ‘Wow, how can I afford for my children to go to college?’” Aponte said. “This gives me hope.”
She was referring to the new Yale- and Community Foundation-funded program to guarantee well-performing public-school students college scholarships in Connecticut and to help them get ready for college.
Aponte, a single mother and president of the parent advocacy group Teach Our Children, made the comment at a filming of the next episode public-access television’s “21st Century Conversations” program hosted by N’Zinga Shani.
The latest episode, filmed earlier this week at the studios of North Haven Community Television, focused on parental involvement in New Haven’s public schools.
Producer and host N’Zinga Shani called New Haven Promise a “phenomenal opportunity.” “We want as many people as possible to benefit from Promise,” Shani said.
The hour-long program featured Shani separately interviewing Aponte and Daniel Diaz, parent advocate for New Haven public schools.
Aponte called parents “a child’s first teacher.” She said TOC aims to let parents know of their important role and that “we have a voice.”
Aponte stressed the need for parents to “feel comfortable” communicating with teachers and administrators and taking charge of their children’s education.
“It’s very hard for parents to concentrate on what their children need from their school, but it’s very important,” Aponte said.
Aponte said that while it can be difficult for parents to find room in their schedules for visiting school, and while transportation can also be a problem, it is vital to overcome these problems for the sake of their children. She also spoke of how parents without computers could use public libraries’ machines to access information on the web.
“We let [parents] know that they cannot allow these barriers to hurt their progress of children,” Aponte said. “We can’t limit ourselves because we don’t have the technology.”
Diaz, a graduate of New Haven public schools with experience working in the private sector, said that his job is to “work with parents to help them navigate through the system.” Like Aponte, he said that the schools have been responsive to the community’s needs and that reform efforts have worked well so far.
“I think we are on the forefront of school change,” Diaz said.
Diaz also praised New Haven Promise, saying that it “helps students make the dream a fact.” He mentioned the CollegeCorps, an attempt to spread the word about New Haven Promise and attempt to get parents and students “from A to Z” in the college application process.
Diaz urged parents to “come to us,” particularly for orientation sessions at the beginning of each school year.
“We will provide them with the information that they need,” Diaz said.
Daniel Diaz demonstrates how translation works in schools.
Translators are now available for parents at schools, and New Haven is now testing a computer program called SchoolNet which allows parents to monitor their children’s progress and communicate electronically with teachers, Diaz said.
Diaz claimed that parents are “50 percent of New Haven public schools.”