New Haven Independent

Deborah Richards is a deputy state commissioner for education in charge of the bureau of accountability and compliance. She received her portfolio a year ago when federal No Child Left Behind officials called to the state’s attention 12 cities in Connecticut in the third or fourth year of NCLB that were still falling behind. These included cities large and small, from Hartford to Norwich to New Britain to Windham.

By a wide variety of measures, based on extensive interviews with staff, far more sophisticated than CMT scores, New Haven ranked highest among the 12 in what has come to be known as the Cambridge Associates report.

That report, available on the NHPS website, rated districts in five “domains” of achievement, one to five, with one being below a basic level of performance and five advanced or excellent.

New Haven received three “goal” rankings, which means it exceeded the minimum requirements, in these areas: its leadership culture, its operational systems (with a strong nod to achievements in use of data), and its stakeholder, including parents, involvement.

It was ranked as “proficient,” that is, met the minimum level in the two other domains - attainment, learning, teaching, curriculum and assessment; and management of human and fiscal resources.

Of the several areas, Richards said, where the report calls for the district to improve, she cited as perhaps the most pervasive for its potential to strengthen the system the need for a better disciplinary policy. “Right now,” she said, “all the schools’ psychologists and social workers spend their time with kids with disabilities who have I.E.P.s [individualized educational programs]. That means there isn’t sufficient staff to work, proactively, not reactively, with kids who are having problems but are not mandated services.”

The system is working on this now through a committee led by Charles Williams, head of high schools. Superintendent Reggie Mayo said he expects a preliminary report on a new discipline policy to be presented to the board by the summer for approval and implementation by the next school year.

“In my 41 years in the NHPS,” he said, “I have never seen so many kids, and little ones even, with so many emotional and behavioral problems. What we need are teams, consisting of clinical social workers, which we don’t have in the schools right now.”

Currently, he said, kids with difficulties are sent to the Yale Child Study Center and other agencies on the outside. “We need to have that resource in the schools.”

The reduction (and documentation) of suspensions and a policy that especially allows suspended kids to have access to their homework was a centerpiece of a rally at which Mayo addressed parents, convened by Teach Our Children, on Saturday.

The group (pictured) including (left to right) Angela Watley, Natasha Smith, Kelly Moye, and, in foreground, Nilda Aponte, was also present at the Monday BOE meeting. They reiterated, with an expression of gratitude to Mayo for his attendance and in more conciliatory tones, their understanding of the superintendent’s promises.

Click here for the article on that meeting, and read the first posting after it for TOC’s enumeration of its understanding of pledges they elicited from the superintendent, on discipline and other matters.

The Cambridge Report cites 151 expulsions last year, including kids with disabilities, and 6,500 out-of-school suspensions. The report cites the ongoing review of disciplinary policy and urges “a high priority be placed on developing positive behavior strategies for all the schools.”

TOC materials also quote the report’s finding that the district’s improvement plans thus far provide insufficient detail as to how this is to be achieved or evaluated.

Another area the BOE might focus its improvements effort on, according to Richards and Michael J. Wasta, a consultant to the state DOE, who accompanied her are the training of supervisors to implement best practices in individual schools.

Currently King/Robinson is the demonstration school where some of these practices are in place, with an executive coach for the principal, and a data facilitator on board. Presumably, as King/Robinson goes, so will go all the schools as a handful of proven best practices and initiatives - from a bevy of some 200 currently ongoing in the system - will eventually be universally implemented.

NHPS was also commended in the report for its high quality early childhood program and certification efforts for teachers at that level; its growing number of A.P. courses offered and taken; and for its parent involvement efforts.

“New Haven, of the 12 districts surveyed,” said Richards, was the only one that did not have any “basic” or “below basic” ratings. “That,” she said, “shows your good foundations have been laid and systemic changes have begun.”

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