New Haven Independent

Coggins, who Friday was appointed to her new job, said at Monday night’s meeting that the decision to relocate the Cross Annex to another part of town — and move the Connecticut Scholars program into its facility at 45 Nash St. — would reduce the risk of students committing crimes in the East Rock neighborhood.

Last month, the East Rock Management Team grilled superintendent Mayo over a string of muggings allegedly perpetrated by Cross Annex students running amok in the area around Mechanic Street.

“That should not happen at all happen at all with the Connecticut Scholars,” she said. “We’re not going to allow that [crime] to start again.”

The Annex houses students who have been removed from the main Cross building because of disciplinary problems. Some will now return to Cross; the rest will move to a facility in the Hill which will also include a similar group of students from Hillhouse High School.

Judy Puglisi (pictured left), assistant principal of the Connecticut Scholars, said at the meeting that the decision to move students into the Nash Street school is a plus for the neighborhood and the local school system.

Starting in the fall, she said, some 90 freshman and 80 sophomores will show up at the Nash Street location for classes. The program, which was launched four years ago, is designed to prepare middle-performing students for honors classes, she added.

“Some of the students don’t want to be at the large school, especially freshman,” Puglisi said.

Some residents, still rattled by run-ins with Cross annex students, complained to the officials about the change, saying it was a cosmetic solution to larger problems in New Haven’s school system.

“Isolating the best and the brightest in a facility is not the best way of improving education,” said Nash Street resident Ron Oster. “The [Board of Education] is not coming up with the best solutions.”

With 1,600 students, Wilbur Cross High School is one of New Haven’s largest secondary schools. Incoming freshman were free to choose between staying there and moving to the Nash Street location, Puglisi said.

Also at the meeting, some neighbors discussed forming a committee about noise-abatement legislation. East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar discussed the upcoming expansion of Albertus Magnus.

Meanwhile, police officers ran over a list of crimes committed recently around the East Rock neighborhood. A Yale graduate student had been robbed after midnight on Prospect Street. On Willow Street, a 12-year-old boy had been assaulted and robbed by a group of teenage males on bicycles.

Police who had visited the boy as recovered in the hospital said he was “doing OK.”