New Haven Independent

The mothers who gathered outside the school, just before dismissal on the last day before summer vacation, have kids in four different schools and are part of a new group called Teach Our Children. They say they want real input into decisions affecting their kids’ education, and claim they don’t have that now.

A press release sent out yesterday by the group focused on Brennan principal Celeste Davis, who was arrested for drunk driving in February, with the media reporting she had three times the legal limit of alcohol in her blood. Natasha Smith, whose son is an eighth grader at Brennan, said several students told her that Davis explained to the children that she’d had “one beer” and was arrested because of racial prejudice (she’s African American). But her group is not calling for her dismissal, not yet.

“What we’re talking about is having leaders who are capable and able to do their job. If that’s her, then it’s her, but we’re questioning that right now. We’re not going to let them sweep this under the rug. She has to be accountable for what she did.”

Davis was unavailable for comment, but a woman driving away from the school shouted to the protesters, “The principal’s a good lady. Only God can judge her.”

Smith said when she’s visited her son’s class, the situation has been “totally out of control,” but she doesn’t fault the teachers. “If she’s an out of control principal, that explains why the school is out of control. Some of the teachers are really good, but they’re not getting supported by the principal or the administration.”

But the protest wasn’t just about one principal. The parents want to see improvements throughout the system, because their kids are not thriving in school. Sheneane Ragin (shown with her son, Shane, a fourth-grader at Wexler-Grant) said, “My son has failed every year and gone to summer school every year, but there’s no summer school for his grade this year, and the summer program that he’s enrolled in is only for kids reading at grade level. Well, he’s not reading on grade level, so where do we go? I went to the board of ed today and they don’t have any answers.”

Hazel Jones, whose son goes to Truman, noted that test scores in New Haven schools in general are much lower than in the surrounding towns. Asked their opinion about why that is so, Ragin piped up, “Disrespect.”And Jones added, “It almost seems they want us to be content with mediocrity.” Asked about the impact of the school-building program, which has transformed most of the city’s schools, including Brennan and Truman, into state of the art facilities, Jones was dismissive. “Oh joy. Let’s talk about the teachers. Let’s talk about the administrators. Let’s talk about the policy. Let’s talk about what’s detrimental to the children, all the mental abuse they’re encountering because people are not following rules and regulations that were put before them by the Board of Education, but [the board is] not holding people accountable.” As an example, she said her fifth grade son was banned from recess because he wasn’t wearing a school uniform. “They’re not supposed to withhold gym and recess, but they do.”

As the mothers and a few supporters (and at least four reporters) talked outside the school, Superintendent Reginald Mayo’s chief of staff, Leida Pacini, strode over and said, “The superintendent will be more than happy to meet with you today at 4 o’clock at Gateway. Can I tell him you’ll be there?”

To wit, the squeaky wheel. Smith rolled her eyes, saying she had gotten nowhere when she’d called Superintendent Mayo in the past. She said in her previous dealings with Pacini, the administrator had treated her condescendingly. “She’s only here because you [the media] are here.” But all the women said they’d attend the meeting. At least a few of them are graduates of the Parent Leadership Training Institute, a program under the auspices of the Connecticut Commission on Children. They seem to be putting into practice what they learned.

When they got to the meeting, Smith reported that Mayo said he’d meet only with parents of Brennan students, and that was just Smith. She said she asked Mayo for a letter from Davis that stated what she had told her students about her arrest. “He said he’d think about it,” Smith said. Then school board member John Prokop came in to the meeting. “He said at the next Board of Ed meeting he would bring it up and they might appoint a supervisor to do some fact-finding” on the issue.

Smith said she felt like she’d gotten the runaround again.

The superintendent’s office released a statement that included comments by several Brennan parents that were supportive of Davis and the positive atmosphere at the school. Mayo said, “We welcome and appreciate parental involvement and parent input in all our schools, and there are a variety of ways that parents are involved. Moreover, we have processes in place to give parents a voice concerning the school system, including times when parents believe that they have a problem with a school or the school system that needs to be resolved.”