Thomas MacMillan Photo
Foskey-Cyrus delivers the news.
Newhallville leaders and Achievement First reached a benefits agreement Monday evening, just in time for aldermen to approve the proposed sale of an abandoned public school.
Aldermen made the announcement Monday evening in City Hall in a joint press conference with representatives from Achievement First (AF), a not-for-profit that runs four charter schools in the city.
The agreement came just before aldermen gave final approval to a deal to sell the abandoned Martin Luther King School on Dixwell Avenue to AF for $1.5 million. AF plans to spend $35 million razing the school and building a new home for its Amistad High School.
Aldermen approved the deal — in the form of a land disposition agreement — first at a meeting of the Community Development Committee at 5:45 p.m. Then the full Board of Aldermen unanimously approved the deal at a meeting at 7 p.m.
Approval of the sale had been stalled while the two sides negotiated a “community benefits agreement” about jobs, neighborhood access, and local student enrollment in the school. The community benefits agreement was appended to the land disposition agreement before that document was approve Monday night by the full Board of Aldermen.
The two sides — AF and a Newhallville group led by Alderwomen Brenda Foskey-Cyrus and Delphine Clyburn — announced they’d come to an agreement in a 4:35 p.m. email press release. At 5:15 p.m. Monday, they gathered in the first-floor atrium of City Hall for a formal announcement.
The event was attended by dozens of people, including charter school parents and staff, many wearing blue Achievement First T‑shirts that read “Charter Schools = Public Schools.” Supporters, including the aldermen, wore stickers reading “Achievement For All.”
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Foskey-Cyrus introduces the deal for a vote.
Addressing the a crowd, Aldwerwoman Foskey-Cyrus (pictured) described the agreement as a “win-win-win” for the neighborhood, New Haven parents, and AF.
“Too often, developments just happen without the people having a say,” she said. “Achievement First and Newhallville are showing our city how development can benefit everyone.”
“This is a great day!” Alderwoman Clyburn said to applause. The event also included expression of praise and gratitude from AF representatives, Alderman Jorge Perez, and an AF parent and student.
The Agreement
The community benefits deal includes seven key components, enforceable by court order:
Local Slots: “Achievement First will offer 10 seats in its 9th grade class to New Haven public school students,” the agreement states. AF will set aside 10 slots for New Haven students who haven’t gone to AF feeder schools, to be filled via lottery. This condition will be reviewed after five years.
This aspect of the agreement was the most contentious, according to Alderman Perez (pictured above), president of the board. “This was the hardest thing to get [AF] to agree to,” he said. “The hardest. This was the one thing most heavily debated.”
Reshma Singh (pictured), AF’s vice president of external affairs, agreed. She said AF prefers to have students in its high schools that have gone through AF middle schools, where the foundation of the teaching style is laid.
What’s more, she said, the school doesn’t have enough slots as it is. The high school is already overbooked, even without adding 10 new slots, she said.
Singh said she doesn’t know exactly how AF will make the space for more students. “We have some time to figure that out.”
She said AF will have to ask the state for more money, to have more spots for students. If the state says no, AF will have to raise funds privately, she said.
Union Jobs: As part of the agreement, AF will partner with New Haven Works, a new “jobs pipeline” agency, to steer New Haveners into cafeteria, custodial, clerical, and security jobs at the school. The custodial and cafeteria workers will be unionized.
Singh said some of its schools in Hartford and New York City already have unionized workers.
AF will also employ blacks and Latinos, women, and New Haveners during the construction of the school. According to state hiring requirements, at least 25 percent of the construction workforce must be from New Haven, Perez said. During construction, AF will hold meetings every other month with Foskey-Cyrus and Clyburn.
Staff Diversity: AF will work with New Haven Works and state universities to identify and recruit minority teachers. As part of an ongoing “Diversity and Inclusiveness Initiative,” AF “shall commit to the retention, engagement, and promotion of candidates who are Black, Latino, and multi-racial, and first generation college graduates,” the agreement reads.
AF commits to having 30 of it’s finalist teacher candidates be minorities, having no difference between the rate of black and Latino candidates who begin work after accepting a job offer and the overall rate of beginning work after a job offer, and having a 5 percent increase in applications from black, Latino, and multi-racials candidates.
Community Access: The agreement includes a promise to make at least the school’s gym and athletics field available to the neighborhood when they’re not in use by the school, free of charge. The Newhallville Community Management team, political committees in Wards 20 and 21 will have use of a conference room that holds at least eight people, and will have priority for the use of the room even over AF during school hours. The building will also continue to be available as a polling place for Newhallville, as the MLK school has been.
Mural: AF promises to put up new public art on the premises to honor civil rights leaders, similar to the mural on the outside of MLK School.
$150,000 For Youth: In a separate agreement, AF agrees to contribute $150,000 over three years for “youth enrichment” programs in New Haven. The money will not go to the union-affiliated New Haven Rising and Newhallville Rising organizations, despite some reports that have spread in New Haven, but will be overseen by a six-member committee, with the Community Foundation For Greater New Haven as the fiduciary. A donation committee — comprising three AF representatives and three representatives appointed by Foskey-Cyrus and Clyburn — will determine how the money is spent.
The agreements were signed by AF CEO Dacia Toll, Alderwomen Foskey-Cyrus and Clyburn (pictured), and the six members of the Newhallville community benefits negotiation committee: former Helene Grant School Principal Jeffie Frazier, Geneva Pollock, Oscar Havyarimana, Dennis Grimes, Tracy Martin, and Sharon McCray.
The Community Benefits Agreement includes a provision that CCNE, the not-for-profit labor-affiliated think tank and advocacy group, will “review the agreement annually and provide a written report of that review to the parties, the Board of Aldermen, and the City of New Haven.
Is this a promise or a written agreement?
[Editor's note: A written agreement, to be appended to the land disposition agreement.]