Hillhouse Principal Ready To ​“Mend Fences”

Stepping into a hot seat at New Haven’s second-largest high school, Glen Worthy is getting lots of advice as the new academic year approaches.

Advice has been rolling in from concerned community members about how to reverse the trajectory of the once-beleaguered 1,003-student comprehensive high school since Worthy was named its new principal.

And Worthy has reached out to mentors and peers to help him get an early start on winning the trust of Hillhouse High School’s community, which spent the past year demanding the Board of Education and the city decrease the number of principals at the school from three to one.

His main goal: to make a divided school feel whole again.

One of the first steps toward that aim comes this Saturday, when Hillhouse hosts a back-to-school rally called ​“Hillhouse Lives Matter” to rustle up community excitement around the school in advance of next Thursday’s opening day.

Hillhouse had been divided into four smaller ​“academies” with three principals, leading staff and students to complain about an overarching lack of organization and limited access to important resources. In June, the Board of Ed unanimously voted to get rid of the three incumbent principals and hire Worthy to replace them.

Some of the advice Worthy got was useful, he said. Former Superintendent Reginald Mayo assigned him a litany of practical tasks: Make sure the master schedule is ​“tight.” Make sure to get teachers to buy into your vision before the first day. Make sure the first three days feel like a smooth transition to a new leader.

He heard from retired Wilbur Cross High School Principal Robert Canelli, who had taken up his position during a difficult time at that school. Canelli stressed the importance of building a strong team of involved teachers, and meeting with top students and vocal parents immediately.

And most importantly: ​“Be transparent, open and honest.”

Worthy has some experience of his own to tap for this new challenge. Born and raised in Newhallville, he chose to study at Wilbur Cross High School over Hillhouse, because a lot of his friends were there. He later spent seven years as the principal of Hill Central Music Academy, which managed to get off the state’s list of struggling turnaround schools last year largely due to his leadership. For the last two years, he was principal of adult education, focusing on recruiting community organizations to help students access job training and post-graduation opportunities.

Worthy felt guilty applying to leave adult ed for Hillhouse, he said. He saw the posting and talked to many people about the job, before putting his name in the running.

“I felt like if I didn’t jump on this, I wouldn’t have the opportunity for a traditional high school,” he said. He was excited at the opportunity to be in a school where parent participation is high — parents are not often involved in adult ed.

Already, at Hillhouse, numerous ​“passionate” parents have called him up or visited his office to talk about the upcoming school year.

Schools Superintendent Garth Harries said Worthy was a candidate with a ​“strong track record” as a leader and a ​“deep interest” in people and students. The academy structure at Hillhouse ​“lends itself” to Worthy’s main priority of ​“distributed leadership,” which ensures academic leaders are working together and building teams throughout the school.

The large size of a school like Hillhouse ​“can be isolating for both teachers and students,” Harries said. Worthy can delegate leadership to ​“create a sense of intimacy and organization for people to work together.”

Worthy has met with teachers three times since his approval as principal June 13, including one meeting this week. ​“I need to mend some fences,” he said.

Alders visited Hillhouse last March and held a subsequent hearing to talk with members of the school community about their grievances with the school. Teachers said they wanted fewer divisions between academies, a more organized schedule and more class options for students.

Worthy is responsible for building trust among teachers, students and administrators, some of which he said broke down in the previous structure. As an administrator, he has to figure out how to support teachers and build their capacity to work with students.

That’s where his resume comes in. When Hill Central got a federal ​“School Improvement Grant” to fund a major overhaul, Worthy replaced half his staff and allowed strong teachers to take leadership positions to help him improve the school. Under his leadership, the school culture leader, academic leader and bilingual leader were responsible for determining professional development opportunities for other teachers. They also would research and discuss with the administration best practices for approaching challenges Hill Central was having, Worthy said.

The school culture leader at the time focused on celebrating the students who were doing well and building relationships with all students outside of the classroom. ​“Other kids really fell in line,” he said. Behavioral issues and suspensions dropped.

“It was very easy for buy-in,” he said.

Worthy said he seeks to develop a similar structure of teacher leadership at Hillhouse.

On a more basic level, he wants to make sure teachers can learn from each other. Last year, teachers said they couldn’t talk to their peers in the same subjects in different academies, because the schedule and physical layout of the school separated them.

This year, Worthy is building time in the schedule for teachers in the same content area to meet regularly and ​“hold each other accountable for their work.” The same classes should have the same rigor in each academy.

Worthy said he believes in the academy system, at least the part where students learn a specific set of skills for a career path over four years of high school. But students shouldn’t be separated from classes that interest them. This year, Advanced Placement classes in any academy will be open to all students. Other types of electives in the academies will be open to students outside of those academies, as long as there is extra room, he said.

Students said last year that they couldn’t meet others in their grade. Seniors, especially, were relegated to one half of the third floor, and were shooed back up when they tried to see teachers in other parts of the building.

They will eat lunch by grade this year, not by academy, Worthy said. Award ceremonies, dances, and trips will be school-wide activities, instead of being segregated by academy. Each academy used to have a parent-teacher organization; now they’ll be merged into one.

Worthy was a school counselor for years before becoming Hill Central assistant principal. He wants to meet with Hillhouse counselors at the beginning of the year to ​“build their capacity” to direct students through the college application process. ​“Every kid should have a nice portfolio,” he said.

Worthy plans to start a shared Excel file tracking students’ progress as they apply. ​“We need to do a better job telling everyone what the counseling department does,” he said, in part by making a bigger deal of celebrating college acceptances at the end of the year.

Hillhouse senior and student Board of Ed member Coral Ortiz said she’s ​“hopeful” about the coming academic year. ​“Everybody’s on board now. When everybody wants the same goal, things are going to happen. Right now everyone does want the same goal,” she said during an interview Thursday on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

She praised the principal selection process. ​“We wanted to be involved in the process. At the end of the day, we did get that. We got to be involved in the choosing of the new principal.”

Ortiz has expressed disappointment over the past year that her school was getting so much negative attention. It made students feel uninspired about going to Hillhouse, she has said. But many of the problems at Hillhouse exist at other schools, and have existed even before the academy system.

“I was here before the academies, during the academies, after the academies,” she said Thursday. ​“A lot of the problems discussed were always there” before this past year’s controversies.

What does Worthy think caused the previous Hillhouse structure to fall? ​“It’s hard when you have three principals,” he said. ​“Who makes the ultimate decision? How do you come to consensus when you don’t agree?”

He was careful to blame the situation, not the principals. ​“They were put in a difficult situation through no fault of their own. If they had more time to plan it, they would have been more successful,” he said.

The third Hillhouse principal, David Diah, was hired in August, days before the school year started last fall. Parents and teachers ​“rebelled” because they felt they had no input.

The assistant principals this year were hired and approved in July and August. Monica Joyner, daughter of Board of Ed member Ed Joyner, will be the assistant principal of the Law, Public Safety and Health Academy, with freshman through seniors. Digna Marte returns from an assistant principal position in Bridgeport to be the assistant principal of the IDEA Academy — also overseeing students in all grades.

John Tarka, a former administrative intern who comes to Hillhouse with Worthy from adult ed, will lead SMART, the freshman and sophomore academy created last year.

Worthy doesn’t know everything about Hillhouse just yet. He was surprised to hear that some Hillhouse seniors last year had struggled to get enough in-school time on computers to work on their college applications. He pulled out a notepad and scribbled down a reminder to himself in blue ink.

He wants to bring the third-floor computer lab to the first floor so more students can access it.

“I’m sure there are a lot of things I’m going to find out about that need to be addressed,” he said. ​“I don’t think I’m going to get to all the things in one year.” Worthy self-described as ​“competitive” and he plans to work hard to make sure he catches up.

“I want us to be the best,” he said.