• About
  • New Haven Independent
  • Online Journalism Project
• Contact
• Site Policies
• Donate
• Bookmark

New Haven Independent

• C-HIT
• Branford Eagle
• Crime Log
• La Voz

Sections

Neighborhoods

Features

Follow Us

NHI Newsletter

Legal Notices

• Aldermen
• Housing Authority
• Probate Court
• City Clerk

Some Favorite Sites

• 5 Snacks After 10
• Abram Katz
• African independent
• At Risk for HD
• Back To Basics
• barista
• Branford Eagle
• Business NH
• Conn Art Scene
• Cornwall-On-Hudson
• Crosscut
• CT Business Litig
• CT Capitol Report
• CT Energy Blog
• CT Enviro Headlines
• CT Green Scene
• CT Law Tribune
• CT Local Politics
• CT Mirror
• CT News Junkie
• CT Watchdog
• CTV
• Design New Haven
• Gotham Gazette
• Hartford Guardian
• Josiah Brown
• Karman Turn
• La Voz Hispana
• Laurel Club
• Len's Lens
• Magrisso Forte
• Media Attache
• Media Nation
• Medical Intelligence
• Middletown Eye
• MinnPost
• My Left Nutmeg
• NBC Connecticut
• NH Advocate
• NH Register
• NH Review of Books
• NH Youth Map
• Northampton Media
• OneWorld
• Only In Bridgeport
• Oral History Project
• Reddit NH
• Road To Greenness
• Saved By Design
• See Click Fix
• Smartpill Design
• Specials In NH
• St. Louis Beacon
• Taste Of NH
• Tom Ficklin
• Valley Independent Sentinel
• Voice of SD
• VT Digger
• WFSB-TV
• WPKN Today
• WTNH
• Yale Daily News
• YourCT

Government/ Community Links

• Advocate Calendar
• Agency on Aging
• Animal Shelter Volunteers
• Arte Inc.
• Arts Council
• Beth El Keser Israel
• Bike New Haven
• Chamber of Commerce
• Children's Museum
• City of New Haven
• CitySeed
• Citywide Youth
• Community Loan Fund
• Community Mediation
• ConnCAN
• Creative Arts Workshop
• CT BAEO
• CT Tech Council
• Dariba Referrals
• Data Haven
• Elm City Cycling
• Elmseed
• Empower NH
• Friends Of Wooster Sq.
• GAVA
• Habitat For Humanity
• Info New Haven
• IRIS
• Jazz Haven
• Jewish Federation
• Job Finder
• Junta
• Labor History
• LEAP
• Legal Aid Network
• Literacy Coalition
• Magrisso Forte
• Mary Wade
• Music Haven
• New Haven 828
• New Haven Chorale
• New Haven Reads
• New Life Corp.
• NH Bulletin
• NH Land Trust
• NH Symphony
• NH/Leon Sister City
• NHS
• Orchestra NE
• PAR
• Parents Available to Help
• Pat Dillon
• Peace News
• PechaKucha
• Planned Parenthood
• Police
• Promoting Enduring Peace
• Public Allies CT
• Public Library
• Public Schools
• Public Works
• Rainbow Girls
• Register Calendar
• REX
• ROOF
• SAMA
• SCSU Events
• Share Our Voices
• Shubert
• Solar Youth
• Soul-O-Ettes
• Squash Haven
• United Way
• Urban Design League
• Urban Resources Initiative
• Ward 25 Blog
• Ward 26 Blog
• Westville Chabad
• Westville Renaissance
• Westville Synagogue
• Workforce Alliance
• Yale Events
• Yeshiva NH Shul
• Yeshiva Of NH
• Youth Continuum

Aldermen hosted a public workshop Tuesday evening on the status of New Haven’s ongoing school reform efforts.

The Board of Aldermen’s Education Committee hosted the workshop in the Aldermanic Chamber, where committee members asked questions of Reggie Mayo, superintendent of schools, Will Clark, the district’s chief operating officer, and Garth Harries, assistant superintendent and school reform czar. There were no questions from the public, and no public in attendance, apart from a couple of reporters.

It’s a meeting that was in the works for a couple months, as aldermen looked for a status update on the city’s school reform efforts. As part of that reform, a new system is evaluating teachers, schools have been tiered and reorganized, and new contracts with teachers and administrators have been struck.

The city has also unveiled a new program called New Haven Promise. Under that program, high school students who keep up good grades will get a free ride to college. Emily Byrne, the acting director of the program, will be on hand to answer questions from aldermen.

In the most recent school district development, Mayo announced at Monday night’s Board of Ed meeting that layoffs are expected next year.

Officials also discussed the city’s ongoing school construction efforts, which include multiple new buildings over the last several years and extensive renovations of existing schools.

Read on for the blow-by-blow:

Live Blog

6:35 p.m.: Aldermen are taking their seats. Chair Alderwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks is reading the agenda. Harries, Clark, Mayo and Byrne have seated themselves across from aldermen.

6:37: Mayo: Thanks for inviting us. Garth will handle the reform piece. Byrne will talk about Promise. Clark will talk about the budget. “I’m going to sit here and listen.”

[Aldermen Marcus Paca, Matt Smith, Maureen O’Sullivan-Best and Migdalia Castro are present.]

The administrators introduce themselves and state their addresses for the record. They all live in New Haven.

6:39: Harries begins with an overview of reform. he hands our a packet of information.

Harries:  The first page shows why we are going about this. The mayor is committed to moving from incremental to exponential change. To do: cut the achievement gap, cut the dropout rate in half and ensure college success. To do that, classroom experiences need to be meaningful and coherent. Schools are the most important part and require cooperation. ... Several major focus points: Student learning, making sure all schools are organized for unique success, developing and retaining the best staff, bringing in the community and parents to work closely with the school.

Harries: We recently tiered all of our schools, putting them in one of three tiers on the basis of academic performance, academic growth, and the climate in the school. ... Last spring we did a pilot program with seven pilot schools. We’ve been pleased with the “level of recreation in many of them.”  Domus, for instance, has improved from 60 percent attendance to attendance in the high 80s. “Still not high enough but a substantial improvement.”

6:45: Harries: This fall we tiered all of our schools. ... A basic measure is how many of our students are on track to graduate. ... We are working intensively with the school who received two stars. ... Even highly tiered schools need to continue to improve. ... So that’s the tiering process. There are other parts to our portfolio process, like the school surveys. Those are among the biggest feedback opportunities. These are surveys that go to every parent, every teacher, and every student fifth grade and up. They measure engagement, safety, respect, academic expectations, communication.

Harries: Another key component is teacher evaluations. “This is a landmark practice which has been recognized nationally.” It’s based on instructional practice, professional values, and student learning growth, which is new. ... There’s a professional conferencing process which is a big part of that. ... We’re through the period of goal-setting. Those teachers who are potentially in “needs improvement” and therefore in possible danger of termination, or “exemplary,” have been notified. ... We are about to launch into mid-year conferences.

6:52: Harries: Four percent are reported as exemplary and 6.2 percent are reported as “needs improvement.” We are hard at work with those teachers. If no improvement, they will be subject to termination.

Harries: The next component is leadership. We’re focusing on growing leaders. ... We’ve been recognized as real innovators in the national context. ... We did not win federal money for leadership growth and training, however.

6:56: Harries: The third major part of our strategy is community involvement. We have recreated the citywide Parent-Teach Association. We monitor parent attendance at report card night closely. Another big part is the survey. ... The other part is making sure that we’re as aligned as possible with community organizations. ...

6:59: Harries: As for Promise and budgeting, take it away Emily on Promise.

Byrne passes out some information.

Byrne: Promise is a scholarship and support program. The scholarship component provides full tuition to New Haven kids who get good grades. The other part, less well-know, is the support part, which we’re calling Promise Partnership. We’re partnering with College Summit, an organization that helps build a “culture of college-going” in high schools. It’s being piloted now at Co-op, and will spread to other schools. ... I’m co-chairing a college-going working committee, we’re looking at planting the seed of a “college-going culture” at as young an age as possible. ... As for supports in the community, we’re putting together a roundtable. ... We want to create more parental and community engagement. We’ll be going out and knocking on doors, talking to parents, and directing them to resources. ... We’re holding community meetings. In Fair Haven on Feb. 1, is the first one. ... We’re hosting three workshops at three schools in February to help students fill out FAFSA and Promise forms. ... “We are in full gear at this point.”

7:05: Clark is next, to talk about the budget. Carl Goldfield asks if the comments are “draft comments.” Clark does not laugh.

Clark: Fixed costs in budget are going up, but the budget has stayed flat. What we’ve had to do is dramatic things, like close schools. We’ve had to eliminate and consolidate programs. ... “It’s a struggle this year, I can tell you that.” ... We’ve looked and found cuts in summer programs, talented and gifted, and athletic programs. ... We got some SIG money or turnaround money from the state, for changing leadership, changing programming. Some schools have taken advantage of that. This year, the money’s smaller and the pool’s larger. ... As for the site-based budgeting process. “My fear last night was not to take things out of context. ... That was not the local media’s purpose.” ... The format of our budget is changing, that’s what I was showing to the board. It will be broken down by school and by department (athletics, central office). It will be available on our website and be “as open and transparent as possible.” ...

Clark: A brief word about school construction: ... We’re working diligently to get to the “close-out” phase of school construction. We’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. ... As we wind it up, we want to make sure we’re matching enrollment projections with current stock. ... There seems to be a bit more of a bubble in our lower grades. ... Construction has a role in the reform, we’re hoping to have a Yale study out in the spring that will “confirm those connections.”

7:17: Mayo: A lot of this stimulus money is on its way out… We’re looking at a $13 to $17 million cut. ... “A lot of bodies will be moving in the next years in a direction we haven’t had to move them.” ... We’ve been able to “slice around the edges” until now. ... We may have to shave a couple million this year.  ... “It looks like we may have to layoff a few this year” and have big layoffs next year. ... We’ve had no funding increases whatsoever over the last couple years.

7:20: Now on to aldermanic questions. Castro is first.

Castro: What did Harries mean about “small communities” when he was talking about tiering schools and stars.

Harries: Schools with two stars are ones that are just entering the tiering process. I was referring to “small learning communities,” which exist at many K-8s but now have been created within larger high schools, at Cross for example, which now has four smaller communities within it.

Clark speaks about why the district lost out on recent federal funding. Part of that money was going to pay for things that New Haven has already done, he said.

Mayo: Only seven districts out of 50 won grants. “We were disappointed by that.” ... We’re getting a lot of shout outs from Arne Duncan. We’re getting a lot of shout outs from President Obama. ...

7:20: Alderman Paca: I can vouch that the school reform effort and the New Haven Promise has done a great job communicating. I was in DC a couple months ago and people were asking me about it. ... My question is about the local business connection. ... There should be some connection between the schools and businesses. ... A “pipeline.” Some positions just require technical training, that could be taught in high schools. For jobs, for example, at the new Smilow Cancer Center.

Mayo: Promise has certainly prompted talk about the kids who are not going to go college. What’s going to be done with those kids? ... No matter what job you have, you’ll need math and reading and writing. ... We’re going to continue to prepare kids for college. ... There are trade schools in the state. ... I agree we’ve got to start thinking about where the jobs are going to be in New Haven and in this state. ... My role is to prepare all kids for college, should they choose to go. ... We need more discussion about what to do with kids who don’t choose to go.

Byrne: We want businesses to use New Haven Promise as a tool. We’ve been talking to businesses about that.

7:35: Paca: The way I envision it is more of a collaboration. I’m not saying we encourage students not to go to college. We need a buffer for kids who don’t want to go to college. ... My last question: Layoffs, do you have any expectations on the mix? Teachers? Paraprofessionals?

Mayo: I think everyone. A mix. ... I’m not sure we can close school, but we’re taking a look at it. We’re looking at combining grades, making classes larger. ...

7:38: Alderman Smith: My first question for Dr. Mayo and for Will, both of you alluded to initiatives that New Haven is doing that others aren’t. Can you be specific?

Clark: We’re speaking, by invitation, to a variety of people in a variety of places, telling them what we’re doing. We’ve already gone down the road farther than others. ...

7:41: Clark: With school construction, we’re able to have energy efficiencies such that we have more square footage and lower KBTUs. ... The older the building the more the cost for square foot. ... We have the ability to control the temperature in schools remotely, from a laptop.

Smith: Possible layoffs, would we also see administrators in that mix?

Mayo: “Yes, sure. Keep in mind that we need some administrators. I need some help. I wish I could do it all.”

Smith: Last year, aldermen approved a $173 million BOE budget. How much of that is from the state?

Clark: $140 million. But it’s complicated. With all the math, we get everything but about $19 million from the state. That $19 million is coming from the city.

Smith: What is the minimum funding requirement?

Clark: The ECS is the main vehicle that pays for education. It basically provides a formula to pay the state’s shares of funding. In CT we’re unique in that it’s a constitutional right to education. ... If we cut city money, the state can penalize us.

Smith: I read that the state has defaulted on some school construction?

Clark: Not accurate. What the state did is reviewed and adjusted some numbers on projects that span a number of years. The schedule was changed, but it was just a recalculation that made it look like there was less money.

7:50: Goldfield: We got $23 million in stimulus funds?

Clark: The states got money from feds for education. What Connecticut did was rather than have it be additional money, they took out $20 million from education budget and put in $20 million from feds. But that only lasted two years, so now there’s a hole. In addition to that, the senate passed another round and our share of that was $8.3 million. Then there was an additional $2 or $3 million for special education. Our share of that was $1.3 million.

Goldfield: We were holding you level, did that include that money?

Clark: The $20 million, but not the other $9 million. ... So it did not lead to armegeddon this year. ... We needed 10, you gave us zero, so thankfully we got nine.

Goldfield: We’re going to flat-fund you, in all likelihood. Then you’ll be down ten again.

Clark: Our total budget is over $173 million, when you add in magnet money and other funds, it’s over $300 million. That money is dwindling also.

Mayo: The governor could fill that $20 million hole, but then cut elsewhere.

Goldfield: If we start to do layoffs… right now we’re trying to improve bad teachers… so how is bumping going to work? It has to follow the contract rules. Who do we retain and who do we not? That’s going to complicate everything. ... We may even have administrators move into teaching and not be very good at it.

Clark: That could lead to a variety of transfers and moves because of the contract that could disrupt a working team .

Mayo: I just got my staff working together and “boom.”

Harries: We could lose some of the fine young teachers on their way to being out best.

8:00: Goldfield: I’m struck by the survey, in which people rate academic expectations. People are rating if they think the expectations are high enough?

Harries: Yes.

Goldfield: I always thought the thing lacking in public schools was expectations. ... When I was in high school, I remember, the academic expectations for my older sister were much higher all of a sudden. Then it all dropped. I saw that in my kids experiences. One went to private school and just had another level of expectations put on her. The instruction wasn’t all that better.

Clark: Surveys show that there is a really great potential still there. ... We’re searching for that solution that’s sustainable. ... It is encouraging that students feel engaged and challenged. ... Is the bar too low? The students feel safe and challenged.

Goldfield: That’s good to know that they feel that. ... At the end are we going to look at testing? Grades by teachers? My kid was getting A’s but she wasn’t doing brilliantly.

Harries: You have tests and you have perceptions. The fact that students perceive themselves to be academically challenged is still important. ... There is no single instrument that will say success or failure.

Mayo: we’re going to compare year to year and see if improvements are made based on the problems identified in the survey.

8:08: O’Sullivan-Best asks about non teaching staff in the survey.

Harries: This year we will include non instructional staff in the survey taking: custodians, secretaries, etc. ... Another change the parent survey was fully anonymous, this year we will do a confidential survey. We won’t know who specifically has taken it, but the vendor who’s doing the survey will be able to tell us who in general is taking it and who is not.

O’Sullivan-Best: Will we be on the hook for magnet funding?

Clark: All schools need to worry about funding.

8:12: Smith: I graduated from Wilbur Cross in 1992. Then went to Yale and there was a definitive difference in the expectations I had and those of my peers who went to private school. It’s a competitive world out there.

Goldfield: I second that. My daughter said that when she went to school the private school kids had a much higher capability for a high workload. My daughter had an advantage for working around the system that they didn’t have, but not the workload expectation they had.

Clark: SchoolNet tracks our kids and the performance of their teachers. ... No one should get a pass. The expectations at each level should be high.

Harries: We need to serve every child that comes through the doors.

Jackson-Brooks: Another thing is homeless students. And out service agencies are tapped out. ... On surveys, only 25 percent of parents responded?

Harries: Yes. In other districts, that’s a fabulous response rate. We’d still like to improve it.

Jackson-Brooks: Do we have funds in the budget for adequate maintenance and repair of schools?

Clark: No. ... We essentially need annually about $40 million for maintenance and repair of all schools.

8:22: Jackson-Brooks: Results came out today saying Connecticut was leading in science education. Any New Haven results?

Mayo: Not yet.

Castro: How are you getting the surveys out?

Harries: We use mail and parents can also do it online, and it’s available when parents come to school for report card nights.

8:25: Meeting adjourned.

Share this story with others.