Teachers Seek New Direction With New Superintendent

The new superintendent will be the boss and whomever it is should require a new direction from his teachers. Less whining, less enabling, less attacking parents.

A new superintendent should also take less input from teachers who live in the suburbs and reward teachers who care enough to live in the city. We also need a superintendent who will better diversify the teacher force and spend less money on wingnut ideas like sending personnel on vacations to hang around HBCUs and Puerto Rican colleges.

We have talent here in New Haven. Tap it.

These teachers are spot-on. Great job being on the right side of education and history!

The question remains, however, is Leslie Blatteau gaining on Bun Lai as the NHI's favorite person?

This seems like a good organization. On the other hand they are pompous to tell the board how to replace a superintendent...seems a little clueless. Stay in your lane.

I disagree with those who opine here that teachers should "stay in their lane."

Teachers should run the schools.

Administrators are too expensive--both in terms of funds and more importantly in terms of shenanigans born of perverse incentives.

The old industrial revolution model of worker-manager or teacher-administrator is grossly inefficient, hence incremental progress in many school systems.

I applaud these teachers for stepping for students and the community. (I don't care what their skin color is or where they sleep at night-I want teachers who care about their profession and their students!)

The one criticism I have for these folks is that they are not militant enough.

The administrative class is not going to go quietly into the night--run them out of town!

Right on!

Educators like these are the heros of New Haven. Thank you ladies for your commitment.

Brutus,

Knowing Leslie for over twenty years, I can definitely say that 'militant' fits somewhere in her equation... I am looking forward to see this movement's message unfold...

Et tu, I like the idea of waging a war on 'The Administrator Class'......
They are certainly expensive and 'dug in' too deep (maybe three deep!).

Comments from a lot of experts who know nothing but what they've been told and what appeals to their pale perspective. Perhaps some of the commenters should talk to students and parents from the district's overwhelming minority base.

Ladies, I admire your spirit and hope for NHPS. But as long as people continue to judge teachers for where they choose to live, how they react to bossy administrators, and feel that teachers are whiners, enablers, and parent attackers (lol) they will not be respected for their opinions. I was a career teacher (33 years) and I witnessed a lot. Unfortunately, I learned not say too much because teachers in NH are to be seen not heard. All of us had Masters Degrees and some, like myself, 6th year degrees. Teachers are educated professionals who are treated like children. Administrators in the district are the problems. I will not go further than that. If you teach in NH you know what I mean. Everyone, admins, coaches, supervisors run around directing what and how you need to do your job. It's all BS. I'm so glad I am retired. Miss the kids but the rest of the BS "no way". Good luck ladies. Keep us posted on your success.

While everyone is rightfully praising Carol Ortiz, it is worth noting that she is the product of an independent school foundational education, with high school being her only state schooling. As far as the administrator/teacher divide, public/state schools could do worse the look to independent schools for reform. The best schools in our region do not have bright lines between administrators and teachers. They have more administrators for the size of their student body, but the administrators continue to teach. The sad thing about state/"public" schools is that the best teachers are often lost to the classroom because of the attraction of higher pay for administration.

While I appreciate and agree with many of the points mentioned by these three teachers, it feels strange that, in a district that serves so many of New Haven's students of color, these three white women (two of whom seem to be very young, and none of whom are from New Haven) feel comfortable speaking publicly about "what New Haven does/does not need." Where is the representation of your student's communities in this panel? Is the NHEC so filled with relatively young, white teachers that it cannot find a teacher of color's voice to add to this discussion?

It's good to hear from teachers. Thanks to Nataliya, Jenna, and Leslie for speaking, as well as to Paul and the NHI, for featuring their voices.

Surely the NHI would provide a forum to additional NHPS teachers offering their perspectives. These are just three examples of the dedicated hundreds who care deeply about their profession and their students. Some of these many hundreds live in New Haven; others don't. Colleagues in both categories contribute to the community. (I say this as a NHPS parent and city taxpayer.)

Diversity, by various measures, is important. Individuals, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, should be judged by the content of their character.

As a Fellow in a 2015 Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute seminar on "American Culture in the Long 20th Century" (led by Matthew Jacobson of the Yale faculty), Nataliya Braginsky developed this curriculum unit on "History of a Social Construction: How Racism Created Race in America":

http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/guides/2015/2/15.02.01.x.html

Josiah Brown - I am certainly not saying that these teachers have not contributed to their community, nor am I saying that they are not dedicated and devoted to their students and New Haven. However, regardless of any white leader's understanding of racism in America, or their proximity to the experience of people of color in New Haven, there are serious limitations to what an organization represented and led by (from the looks of this panel) mostly white people can do for all of the children in New Haven. About 18% of the NHPS student body is white, and 100% of the people speaking on behalf of the NHEC in this case appear to be white and were not born in this city. I'm not saying they have no place in this movement, but white people cannot not be the dominant decision makers or spokespeople in an organization whose mission is protecting and improving schools that serve mostly Black and Brown children. To that end, I'm not sure this is what Dr. King had in mind when he hoped for a future in which people were judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

I agree with ilnh1212. Martin was a lot closer to Malcolm in his ways of thinking and his views about white people just before his death than he was when he gave that speech five years earlier.

If Leslie Blateau only teaches one, yes one, class at Metro, then the following assumptions are logical:

As a K-12 NHPS Student and recent graduate of Metropolitan Business Academy, I would like to correct the statement pertaining to Ms. Blatteau's teaching schedule.

During my four years at MBA, as well as this past school year, Ms Blatteau regularly taught AP History, International Issues, Peer Leadership and Advisory. All of which are generally filled to capacity with 27 students.

Although Ms Blatteau takes on many leadership activities within the building, she is known best as a hard working, caring, and inspiring teacher to the student body.

ilnh1212 & westville man:

Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Evidently we largely agree.

My post was not a response to any particular prior one. My hope more generally was to encourage teachers--these three, but not only them--to continue to lend their voices to the debate.

It would be valuable to hear from additional NHPS educators of various experiences, grade levels, subject areas, and schools. In what ways would their perspectives differ, or overlap? From testing to discipline to budgetary allocations, there are likely various views and ideas. As recognized, the BOE survey, as part of the superintendent search, is already one helpful mechanism for collecting suggestions from teachers, among others.

Again: Diversity is important. The aim of increasing the district's numbers of teachers of color--through recruitment, development, and retention--rightly has broad support.

Presumably the NHEC would welcome additional participants. That organization can speak for itself, as NHFT and administrator colleagues do. We can respect everyone's input, including parents and students.

I stand by my MLK-inspired point that individuals--of all backgrounds--should be judged by who they are and what they do, not by the pigmentation of their skin or other aspects of their phenotype.

An online forum can be a useful complement to the interactions of human beings, face-to-face. But it's no substitute for such personal interactions, through which relationships and trust grow. A virtual community is not a fully real community, which is what we New Haveners share.

Beyond the specific curriculum unit Nataliya Braginsky prepared (noted above, as its topic seemed relevant), I can speak to Leslie Blatteau's impact as a teacher of a young man I've known for a decade. He still regards her, seven years after she taught him, as among the best teachers he ever had. He learned from her and knew she cared, whatever the differences in their ancestry and upbringing.

Peace.