nothin Ed Board Slams Brakes On “Imagine” | New Haven Independent

Ed Board Slams Brakes On Imagine”

Aliyya Swaby Photo

Torre, Caraballo came out swinging.

A controversial plan for New Haven public schools to create an experimental school with a charter network hit a roadblock Tuesday night, as two Board of Ed members peppered proponents with skeptical questions and declared themselves unprepared to vote yet.

Board President Carlos Torre and Alicia Caraballo raised their questions during back-to-back Board of Ed committee meetings held at the John Martinez School in Fair Haven. They said they need more time and much more information before they can vote on whether or not the district should enter into a financial partnership with Achievement First (AF) charter network to create an experimental charter school called Elm City Imagine.

Members of the public also offered testimony, the majority of which opposed the plan.

Schools Superintendent Garth Harries and AF CEO Dacia Toll have repeatedly called the potential partnership a win-win-win,” giving AF the chance to try out a new educational model, families an innovative school option, and the district more state resources to reduce class sizes at its other schools.

In a heated discussion at Tuesday’s Finance and Operations Committee meeting, Caraballo and Torres questioned whether and to what extent the New Haven Public Schools would benefit. They asked exactly how class sizes would be reduced. They berated AF representatives at the committee meeting for bringing the district on board years into the process of developing Elm City Imagine, instead of right away.

You should have started right from the beginning, not put something on our laps and say, We’re going to be partners,’” Torre said. The conversation will happen on the board’s terms, not on AF’s terms, he said. We’re not going to be pressured.”

District CFO Victor De La Paz.

Harries had originally planned for a board vote Feb. 23, but postponed that vote at least until March.

Starting as a K‑1 and eventually expanding to fourth grade, Elm City Imagine will be AF’s first school using the Greenfield” model. The model, designed with the help of the inventor of the computer mouse, is aimed at inventing the school of the future. It encompasses a variety of creative teaching and learning methods, including a calendar alternating eight weeks of regular classes with two weeks of career expeditions” and daily blocks of self-directed learning.” AF is also planning to create a Greenfield middle school beginning with next year’s fifth graders at Elm City College Prep Middle School.

Last week, Harries released a draft of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) delineating the terms of the proposed agreement between AF and the district. The district would provide $700 in cash and in-kind services per student for a school that AF would run and staff — not including the legally required contribution for transportation and special education services. (Click here to read the draft MoU. Click here to read Harries’ letter explaining the MoU.) The document lays out various solutions to establish equity” in the way AF recruits and enrolls its students, as well as to allow for increased collaboration between the charter network and the district.

Toll and Harries have said the partnership will ultimately benefit the district, since more students will go to Elm City Imagine who would have otherwise gone to neighborhood schools, leaving the district with fewer students to support on the same amount of state funding.

No Partnership, No School

Tuesday’s committee meetings were intended for AF and district representatives to present a deeper analysis of that financial partnership to board members and the public. They quickly heated up as Torre and Caraballo probed beyond the presentation.

Harries has said he would use the state money to reduce class sizes at between five and nine over-enrolled, struggling neighborhood schools, either by nine students per classroom at five schools or five students per classroom at nine schools.

Caraballo said she wants to know the number of students in kindergarten and first-grade classes in every single school in the district, in order to see exactly which schools could be targeted for class-size reductions. She said she mistrusted AF with handling its high number of school suspensions, especially since the new school will have an extended day from 7:15 to 5 p.m.

I’m not convinced you have resolved all your issues,” she said. Elm City Imagine students might end up back in the district once the school year starts … because you can’t handle the discipline.”

How many students at every school? How many teachers are we missing? Unless we get those numbers … I’m sorry, but I can’t make a decision,” Torre said, calling an uninformed vote irresponsible.”

Polaner (right), Taylor (middle) and district COO Will Clark.

We’re not going to open the school if we can’t figure out the right partnership,” said AF CFO Max Polaner. He said AF wants to embrace this partnership, but we need to feel that equity,” which is why the network needs the district to fill the $700/child financial gap. Long-term, the partnership will serve hundreds of students that wouldn’t otherwise be served,” he said.

The proposal will cost NHPS $202K in year one and ramp up to $459K after year 4 (excluding special education and transportation as required by law), representing a substantially less costly way to serve the students,” according to a financial summary presented by the district’s Chief Financial Officer Victor De La Paz Tuesday. The committee only progressed halfway through discussing that two-page financial summary, which showed a breakdown of calculations and estimates that led to the $700/child district payment.

It would be been more beneficial to have involved us when you started working on it” two years ago, Caraballo said. She said AF could have found additional resources to fill that $700 gap instead of asking the district.

Matt Taylor, director of AF’s residency program, called Elm City Imagine an opportunity for the district and AF to build something together.” The residency program has brought together administrators and teachers from both parties to share best practices and learn from each other, he said.

We don’t have any partnership,” Torre said. We’ve had activities together. We’ve built something together … but not the schools themselves.”

That’s the opportunity here, right?” Taylor said. He said Elm City Imagine would facilitate collaborative innovation between the two.

Except that you’ve already hired a principal and hired staff,” Caraballo retorted. You already have it all set up.”

But we don’t have a school,” Polaner said. AF has a proposed principal” for a proposed school,” he said.

Public Comment

Harries invited the public to speak at the Governance Committee meeting, which was held right after the Finance and Operations meeting. At last Monday’s board meeting, more than 40 people signed up to speak either in favor or against the proposed partnership. Just over 30 signed up for public comment at Tuesday’s committee meeting, the majority of them against the partnership, rallied to speak by the teachers union and other groups of educators.

The debate was similar to last week’s. Pro-partnership teachers and parents explained how their students and children are thriving at AF schools. Detractors of the partnership questioned various aspects of the process and proposal, and criticized charter schools’ negative rhetoric about failing” district schools.

Current AF teacher Randa Johnson said her children went through the public school system, but she would put them in AF charter schools if she had to do it again. Everything I’m hearing that’s negative about [AF] tonight is based on fear and scare tactics,” she said.

Some who spoke at last week’s meeting prepared new, updated comments for Tuesday. Teachers union President Dave Cicarella reiterated challenges to AF to implement the new enrollment policies detailed in the MoU, without the new school.

And Keisha Hannans, of the New Haven School Administrators Association, called on the board to ensure its involvement in the decision going forward is collaborative: I challenge the board to utilize your right to provide checks and balances to this collaboration, because it clearly has not included you. But it cannot proceed without you. Ask questions and require the superintendent to provide you with hard numbers in reference to K and 1 enrollment in every school, the number of mid-year transfers in NHPS, specifically K and 1, and the receiving schools and a line by line budget for each school. Then we can discuss equity and collaboration.”

The delay in the process might keep Elm City Imagine out of the school placement process (formerly the lottery”), even if it is eventually approved by the board. AF spokespeople said Tuesday that they would continue to supply board members with the information they need and hope to get started on Imagine as soon as possible.

For previous coverage:
What Price Partnership?
Blue Stickers Square Off Vs. Red Shirts On Charter Deal, As Harp Keeps Options Open
On Eve Of Ed Board Debate, 50 Heavy-Hitters Back Charter Plan
Teachers, Parents Organize Against Charter Deal
The School Of The Future Gets A Dry Run
Teachers Union Prez Pens Imagine” Critique
Charter Plans Detailed; Parents Weigh In
Elm City Imagine Sparks Debate
NHPS, AF Team Up On Experimental School
Elm City Charter Eyed For Futuristic Conversion”
City’s Charter Network Hires San Francisco Firm To Design The K‑8 Public School Of The Future

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