Melissa Bailey Photo
Elementary school students arrive at Amistad by bus.
Of the 96 students in Amistad Academy’s kindergarten class, only 12 live in the neighborhood. The charter school staff promised to change that — by giving Dwight kids first dibs at open seats.
The recruitment drive is getting underway at the newly combined K‑8 charter school, which is preparing for its second year at a new home at 130 Edgewood Ave. in the Dwight neighborhood.
Achievement First, Amistad’s parent company, purchased the former Timothy Dwight School from the city for $4.51 million in 2009, with a pledge to recruit Dwight families into its classrooms. Though it operates under separate control from the New Haven Public Schools, Amistad is a public school accepting New Haven kids.
Coinciding with the move, the charter group lobbied the state to pass a law designating Amistad Academy as a “neighborhood” school. The law, which took effect in time for last year’s admissions lottery, gives top preference in admissions to students who live with a specified area in the Dwight neighborhood, matching the boundaries that had been used for the Dwight School.
Based on last year’s yield — only 12.5 percent of the new kindergarten class hails from the neighborhood — it’s not clear how many Dwight families knew about their newfound advantage in grabbing hard-to-get spots in a high-performing school.
That’s what brought Lauren Miller to a meeting of the Dwight Central Management Team one evening last week in the school gymnasium. Miller is the “associate external relations team coordinator of student recruitment” for Achievement First in Connecticut. She showed up to get out the word to parents to apply to the school before a Feb. 17 deadline.
Management team Vice-Chair Curlena McDonald, who presided over the meeting, rued that few young parents were at the gathering, which was poorly attended.
McDonald committed her group to getting the word out.
Allan Appel Photo
Achievement First recruiter Lauren Miller and Dwight dad Chris Arnott.
One parent who showed interest was journalist Christopher Arnott, who lives only a block away from Amistad. His daughters, in the 2nd and 4th grades, head to Amistad each morning — not to go to school, but to catch a bus across town to Fair Haven Heights, where they attend the Benjamin Jepson Interdistrict Magnet School.
Arnott said he tried once to get his girls into Amistad — and may try again, now that he better understands the admission process.
He got his hopes up last spring for sending his daughters to the school. He applied to Amistad through the lottery system, which is run by the city school district. One child was put on a waiting list and offered a place only at the last minute and the other not at all. They accepted spots at Jepson.
Miller explained Tuesday that the best chances to get students into Amistad come in kindergarten and in the 5th grade, where students often shuffle schools. For a neighborhood student to get in, there has to be an open seat. So Arnott’s daughter may have a better chance this year, she explained.
According to Miller, the 204 students applied for 96 kindergarten spots in the 2011-12 school year.
Neighborhood students who list Amistad as their first-choice school in the lottery get top preference in admissions, according to Debbie Breland, student recruitment coordinator for the New Haven Public Schools, which runs the lottery for charters and magnets using through a computerized system. Any remaining spots are given to students with siblings at the school, Breland said. Seats are then opened to all other New Haven residents.
Melissa Bailey Photo
On her first day of school in August, Kindergartner Elizabeth Bailey learns a breakfast routine from teacher Randi Whitley.
The 12 neighborhood kids in Amistad’s four classes of kindergarteners comprise only 12.5 percent of the total. Amistad recruiters want to improve on that.
Achievement First’s spokesperson Mel Ochoa said his organization is better prepared to boost local enrollment this year. Last year, when the school was in the throes of moving into the new building, AF did not know how many potential kindergarteners lived in the neighborhood.
“We know that 54 children are eligible for kindergarten this year in the preference zone,” Ochoa wrote in an email. Amistad is doing direct outreach to those families, he said.
“We are working hard to increase that number (that is, the current 12 kindergarteners). Each eligible family will each receive information noting they are in the preference zone and we are working with the neighborhood groups to knock on doors.”
All families must apply by Feb. 17 through the citywide magnet lottery, which takes place on March 13, according to Breland. There are no guarantees of admission, and available seats depend on how many kids leave the school.
Click here for information about the district’s magnet school fairs and lottery.
Click here for their descriptions of “neighborhood preference” and how to find if you are in a particular school’s neighborhood catchment area.
Amistad will hold open houses on Jan. 26 and Feb. 11.
Melissa Bailey Photo
Spots open up largely at the kindergarten level, although there are very small numbers of openings at other grade levels, particularly 5th grade, which is the shifting point to middle school.
“While kindergarten is our emphasis, we want people to know they can apply at any grade,” AF’s Miller said.
She pledged do a lot more to tell local families what is now available to them on a neighborhood preferential basis.
While there was some recruitment in the Dwight area last spring as Amistad geared up for its first year in 2010 in the new building, the management team’s McDonald called that effort less organized than what she is seeing now.
Lauren Miller and Dwight Management Team veep Curlena McDonald.
Neighbors were wary of Amistad’s plans when the charter group moved into the neighborhood. McDonald said communication between Amistad and the management team wasn’t as good as it might have been at that time, she said.
Miller said this year will be different. She said recruitment letters had already been sent out citywide, and next week letters will be going to all kindergarten-age families in the Dwight area.
Miller also came bearing lists of the streets and addresses eligible for a neighborhood preference. She announce she would prepare lists of all the families in the Dwight area with children in kindergarten and 5th grade.
“Can we get the lists and go [out, soliciting with them]?” McDonald asked Miller.
“I’d love it,” came the answer.
However, New Haven Police Officer David Hartman, who was in the audience, cautioned that lists of young children’s addresses should not be handed out to just anyone.
McDonald said they would be given only to those folks the management team knew and trusted. “We want to compile that list. We can help each other,” she said.
Miller fielded only a question or two from the audience. Someone wanted to make sure that grandparents who were parenting young children will not be left out.
If they’re the legal guardians, Amistad staff and others will be knocking on their doors.
Mildred Belton found the list of eligible Dwight “neighborhood” street addresses confusing; Miller clarified.
Mildred Belton, who lives in the neighborhood, said that when her daughters, who are now grown, were going to school, they were involved in the school lottery and found it confusing. She said she was concerned that eligible people know about it, including her niece.
She’d heard that Amistad was a good school. “I“m going to be part of it [the recruitment effort]. I want to help kids in the neighborhood come,” she said.
Miller said that Amistad was thrilled to be in the Dwight community. She hoped to return in April with the good news of all the neighborhood kids who had been accepted, she added.
Miller urged Christopher Arnott to apply again.
Arnott replied that his kids are having a good experience at Jepson. And they are pretty close and want to be in the same school. Still, he said he plans to make a second try to get his kids into their neighborhood school.
“Whether or not my girls go here,” he said, “the school is a benefit.”
I keep in touch with a Aaron Regunberg of Rhode Island.He send this to me.Read and think hard.
Achievement First - Myths and Facts.
http://wecanri.org/achievement-first/myths-facts
This is a good one he sent to me.
An Appeal to Authority The new paternalism in urban schools
By David Whitman.
http://educationnext.org/an-appeal-to-authority/