New Haven Independent

The acrostic was revealed to a gathering of students and dignitaries who gathered at Clarence Rogers School Thursday morning to celebrate Clarke’s selection as 2008 Connecticut Association of Schools’ (CAS) Elementary Assistant Principal of the Year. She works at both Clarence Rogers and Katherine Brennan Schools, where she has developed a reputation for working well with special-ed students.

Her proud and admiring principal told the crowd the description she created using the first letters of her name): Competent, Leader, Articulate, Resourceful, Knowledgeable Educator.

Thursday’s celebration for Clarke was full of kids, song, balloons, standing ovations, and ceremony-stopping contagious hugging. The 24-year urban education veteran, with innovative expertise in including special needs kids in the full life of their school, was hailed by New Haven State Rep. Toni Walker: “We really need to honor our teachers much more. People like Amy make us understand why it is right that we spend so much money on our schools.”

Clarke was selected out of what CAS officials described as the largest and most competitive pool of candidates since the award was inaugurated in 1990, 20 candidates. When a candidate is accepted — they’re usually nominated by superintendents or principals — CAS asks them to write essays describing what they have done in the classroom. That, plus four recommendation letters, becomes the basis for selection.

Despite the talented pool in 2008, Clark’s selection was unanimous. She was a standout because of her remarkable ability to connect with people, a drive both for excellence and equity, for having changed the lives of so many people, and for juggling all that not only in one school but two.

Clarke’s arrangement is unique because she and Celeste Davis manage two buildings: Rogers, the K-2 school, and its feeder school, Katherine Brennan, which serves third through eighth grade.

They do a lot of running back and forth across Wilmot Road. Schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo praised Clarke’s passion to provide resources to all kids in the school as an example that is becoming contagious throughout the system.

Mayo and others spoke of other star administrators and teachers over the years, a number of whom were in the audience to applaud their colleague. These included Gina Wells, principal of the John C. Daniels School, who is the CAS’ national distinguished principal of the year and John Nguyen, a Hillhouse High social studies teacher who recently received a $25,000 National Educator Award from the Milken Family Foundation for introducing his students to China by taking them there, and much else.

In her acceptance remarks Clarke praised her mentors and acknowledged that she indeed feels part of an innovative system where “We are just beginning to draw attention to what’s been done in New Haven.” She said she was particularly glad that her two schools, relatively isolated out by the Hamden line, might be seen, through this award, as a place where so much excellence and good learning are occurring.

Her warmth, ability to connect with people — one of her nominators said that Clarke made it her business to have meaningful conversations with everybody in the school, down to the youngest children — and the self-deprecating humor were also on display when she said, as her admiring parents, husband, teenage children, and siblings looked on: “If you had grown up with four sisters in 1,000 square feet and with one bathroom, you too would have learned early on the meaning of equity!”

Toward the end of the ceremonies, Raeshonda Reed (pictured above) hugged her assistant principal, and said, “Ms. Clarke, is that big girl really your daughter?” Another meaningful conversation would likely be percolating later this afternoon.