New Haven Independent

The board heaped praise on Mayo, who has led the system since 1992, at its Monday night meeting. Mayo will receive a 4 percent increase to $184,000 in a new three-year contract, and its approval at the BOE meeting was relatively pro forma. (The mayor had already announced it earlier in the day). The approval was preceded by a ceremony of congratulations for the 25 teachers and seven administrators, including Ed Linehan (pictured above to the right of Mayo), supervisor of magnet schools, who are retiring this year. The board also learned that Chief Operating Officer Robin Golden is leaving her job.

A good number of the departing veteran educators, such as Diane Clausen, who is retiring after 35 years at the Troup School, came on board when Mayo was a rookie himself. Mayo was a young science teacher, explaining the intricacies of electricity to seventh-graders at the very same school back in 1967

What made the BOE meeting more than pro forma, following fast upon the superintendent’s re-appointment, was the active, at times even aggressive questioning by Mayor John DeStefano, of a presentation by Imma Canelli on how well the NHPS is doing in achieving its own “Five Bold Goals.” These goals, often displayed on posters in school lobbies, are coming due in 2008, during the superintendent’s new term.

Cannelli, the acting assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, gave a detailed power-point, based on the most recent test scores and other assessments, on the progress toward the first three goals. Goal one: by 2008, 95 percent of NHPS students will be “ready to succeed by the end of kindergarten.” Second, 95 percent will achieve math and literacy standards. Third, the achievement gap will be no more than 5 percent for the “defined student subgroups,” that is, for African-American, Hispanic, and special education students.

Canelli said that by an oral language assessment, only 78 percent of kindergarteners were proficient in letter identification and only 81 percent were up to speed in sounding out the letters, — for, adding in other measures, an overall progress of 86 percent toward the 95 percent goal.

Mayor DeStefano, who recently resumed attending meetings after an extended hiatus, asked how this all relates to reading readiness. He asked if there is a correlation between those kids who are doing better and those who went to pre-K.

Similarly, he asked what’s being done when he was presented with what Canelli described as her most serious concern. With regard to the achievement gap by the eighth grade she said, 31percent of African Americans, 27 percent of Hispanic students, and a whopping 64 percent of special ed kids remain behind goal.

Board members such as Frances Padilla asked if the data-driven approach is kicking in. That is, is the progress of each student being tracked via the new computer systems and data teams in place in the schools, and the performance of each teacher in order to tailor instruction and establish best practice and to achieve the 95 percent goal by 2008?

“In other words,” asked the mayor, “how do you create specific accountability in individual schools for doing better, for reaching these goals?”

“We bring in teams,” replied Mayo, “at the beginning and the middle of each semester. Look, these CMT [Connecticut Mastery] tests, for example, are very demanding. They ask not only for answers but for thinking process.”

“es, there is an atmosphere of real concern,” he said. “And we are using our data teams using information for our district tests that increasingly are telling us, diagnostically, much more than we knew before.”

“All right,” chimed in Frances Padilla, “but I noticed, Dr. Mayo, that several schools have been on a downward trajectory for quite a while. What are we doing to arrest that?”

“We put in additional administrators for the lowest performing schools.”

“Yes, but what about in the classroom?”

“Well, as you know, we do go in to assess the teachers. And if a teacher is not performing, we can get rid of that teacher. We try to provide extra math and reading help.”

BOE Chair Brian Perkins then spoke up: “Our new data system will really help us to diagnose what works well. I think we are on the brink of making big changes.”

Said Mayo: “I’m going to bring to the board a request for five additional days for staff development next year.”

“I’ll tell you what,” concluded the mayor, “when we get the full 2006 CMT scores, I would love to have the principals and directors of the low performing schools, some of them, to come in here, to a regular meeting of the BOE, say of the ten lowest performing schools, and explain to us how they are going to be addressing the issues. Also, of course, we’d love to hear from those who are performing on a high level of excellence.”

“All right, Mr. Mayor,” said the superintendent. “I firmly believe that the issue is often leadership at the school. So I have no problem with what you request.”

“I’d like to have them come in.”

“Okay.”

In another low-key, but potentially influential development for the performance of the NHPS, it was announced that Robin Golden, who for the last four years has been the system’s chief operating officer, will be leaving in August to take up a position as a visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School. Mayo thanked Golden for her dedication. He credited her for being the major-domo of the data-driven approach to school success discussed earlier, as well as heading up a large range of innovations leading to great savings in energy management at the NHPS’s 50 buildings, among other achievements.

Perhaps closest to Golden’s heart has been her leadership in launching the school district’s wellness program, which includes not only Take Ten, which are exercises for kids to do in their classrooms, and wellness teams, in response to rising childhood obesity. This has included the removal of junk food from of the school system’s vending machines, and the replacement of soda by water and juice. “Robin’s only failure,” Mayo said, “was that she was unsuccessful in having me lose the weight I promised. She will be missed.”

Golden will be a presence, however, in the NHPS, even after she leaves at summer’s end. She will continue working in the wellness program; she recently spearheaded the team that won a $400,000 grant from the Connecticut Health Foundation to expand the wellness program from a pilot of six schools to 18 K-8 schools. Moreover, in her new job at Yale, she will supervise two of the law school’s well known clinics, in which students advocate for important municipal and national issues. One of those, the Equity in Education Clinic, brings Yale legal brains to bear on the inequity in state funding of municipal school systems.

“I just love my job with the BOE,” she said. “I wasn’t looking at all. This great opportunity just presented itself. And, yes, I well might work with the students and sue the state on behalf of NHPS’s students. I mean last year, the net increase from Hartford to the schools was something like $330,000. And this year the governor first promised $10 million and is now taking some of that amount away, by half. $330,000? Really! When you look at the 3 percent increases in union contracts, that’s nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Golden also noted that her father died this year, and her mother, at age 85, might benefit from her having a little more time to spend with her.