by | Jul 9, 2025 3:50 pm | Comments (1)
New Syrian flag, at a May Roberto Clemente AAPI celebration.
Maya McFadden file photo
NHPS Supervisor of World Languages Jessica Haxhi.
The city’s school district is applying for a $61,000 grant to support three part-time Arabic instructors at King-Robinson, Benjamin Jepson, and Roberto Clemente schools.
Continue reading ‘NHPS Seeks $$ For Arabic Teachers, Events’
by | Jul 9, 2025 11:02 am | Comments (7)
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West Rock/West Hills Alder Honda Smith: This is a "disrespect to taxpayers, the teachers they moved out of Brennan-Rogers, and to the students and families they didn't give notice to."
(Updated) The city’s public school district is looking to hire a new “chief of school operations,” even as New Haven Public Schools has cut 76 vacant teacher and central office positions and closed a school to help mitigate a budget deficit.
by | Jul 8, 2025 1:59 pm | Comments (14)
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At Monday's Board of Ed Finance & Operations meeting.
The city’s public school district is looking to pay its former part-time custodial contractor up to $1.4 million this summer — as it works on finalizing a new $5.8 million deal with a new custodial contractor.
by | Jul 8, 2025 11:58 am | Comments (3)
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NHFT leaders Jenny Graves and Leslie Blatteau: Contract is important for "school safety" and preventing "burnout."
After five years without a contract, New Haven substitute teachers officially have a collective bargaining agreement — which will see long-term subs paid roughly $150 per day.
by | Jul 7, 2025 2:51 pm | Comments (12)
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Budget Director McCue (right), with Mayor Elicker: $3M designed to help address "learning gaps, student well-being, and staff retention."
The Elicker administration has formally proposed setting aside $3 million in surprise state aid as “contingency funding” to help the school district close a budget deficit and avoid teacher layoffs.
Continue reading ‘$3M In "Contingency Funding" Pitched For NHPS’
by | Jul 3, 2025 12:56 pm | Comments (6)
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At this year's final eighth-grade promotion ceremony at Wexler-Grant, in June.
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Dixwell Alder Jeannette Morrison (right), with the late former Wexler-Grant Principal Jeffie Frazier, in 2019: "There is a rumor [Wexler-Grant's] closing, but that's not true. That's why I'm not sad. It's being repurposed for a specific type of learning and it'll provide the children and parents in the district with a new option."
From the archives: Winchester Community School rises.
As Wexler-Grant prepares to merge with Lincoln-Bassett, this reporter took a step back into the Dixwell school’s long history as a pioneer in the movement to make room for kids, parents, and community alike.
Continue reading ‘Winchester, Wexler, & The Story Of A Community School’
by | Jul 2, 2025 8:16 am | Comments (21)
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Supt. Negrón: "I wish I did not have to be the superintendent that needed to mitigate."
At Tuesday's meeting, Brennan staffers say goodbyes.
(Updated) The Board of Education took a final vote Tuesday on a $220.7 million budget for the fiscal year that started Tuesday.
That now-approved fiscal plan will see the school district close Brennan-Rogers School and eliminate 76 teacher and central office positions, all in an effort to mitigate the budget deficit and avoid layoffs.
Continue reading ‘It's Official: NHPS Budget Approved; Brennan-Rogers To Close’
by and | Jul 1, 2025 2:20 pm | Comments (14)
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Mayor Elicker on Tuesday: "Given all the pressures on public schools, I feel strongly that this is the right place for the money to go."
Mayor Justin Elicker is looking to send another $3 million in city funds to the Board of Education to help close the school district’s budget deficit for the fiscal year that started Tuesday.
According to Elicker, this proposed budget bump won’t be enough to keep Brennan-Rogers School open.
by | Jun 30, 2025 8:49 pm | Comments (21)
The cover page of the newly release draft budget.
After months of public requests for a detailed budget breakdown, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) has released a 120-page document containing proposed budget expenditures for the fiscal year that starts Tuesday.
by | Jun 27, 2025 10:05 am | Comments (30)
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Fans in use at Monday’s school board meeting.
The city’s school district spent $43,000 on an emergency contract to purchase 650 box fans — which arrived a week and a half before the end of the school year.
by | Jun 26, 2025 5:02 pm | Comments (1)
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At childcare center Hope For New Haven, 75 slots will be incorporated under the state's new Early Start program.
State-funded childcare providers are poised to become far more affordable, higher-capacity, and better paying — thanks to landmark investments in early education signed into law this week.
While the biggest impacts of those state laws will likely take years to unfold, New Haven-based childcare providers are already sketching out visions for expansion.
Continue reading ‘With Guv’s Signature, Childcare $$ To Flow’
by | Jun 26, 2025 3:27 pm | Comments (8)
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Truman School students show off their Yondr pouches in March.
Yondr pouches are working so far in freeing up classroom time for teaching, learning, and discussion instead of phone-scrolling distraction.
Three assistant superintendents and a principal offered that assessment Wednesday night during a City Hall hearing about the city school district’s recent implementation of phone-free tech.
Continue reading ‘NHPS: Yondr Pouches Are Working Well So Far’
by | Jun 25, 2025 5:52 pm | Comments (18)
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Alder Smith, with Majority Leader Furlow (right): Don't close Brennan-Rogers.
At Wednesday's presser.
Two west-side alders and a state representative stood alongside teachers, parents, and community advocates Wednesday at a press conference calling for New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) to release a line-by-line budget breakdown — and to keep Brennan-Rogers School open.
by | Jun 25, 2025 9:54 am | Comments (6)
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The former West Rock STREAM Academy.
The Board of Education has approved the school district’s plan to hand over to city government two vacant former school buildings in West Hills and Fair Haven Heights.
Continue reading ‘Ed Board OK's Giving City 2 Empty School Buildings’
by | Jun 24, 2025 3:40 pm | Comments (6)
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Mayor Elicker, city climate director Steve Winter, Greenskies Vice President Ryan Linares, and Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow on Tuesday.
Thomas Breen file photo
Solar canopies outside of Albertus Magnus in 2023.
Two new solar panel parking canopies containing nearly 1,000 solar panels in total will be installed in the parking lots of L.W. Beecher Museum Magnet School and Hill Central School this summer.
by | Jun 24, 2025 3:31 pm | Comments (22)
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Brennan-Rogers staff and families push back on closure plans.
Negrón: "My job is to mitigate the budget."
Negrón's new budget mitigation plan -- with no teacher layoffs, but Brennan-Rogers closure.
A week before the start of the new fiscal year, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Supt. Madeline Negrón has come up with a new budget-mitigation plan that would scrap previously proposed teacher layoffs — and would instead close Brennan-Rogers School, cut teacher vacancies, eliminate central office positions, merge classrooms, and reduce funding for athletics-related travel.
After all that, this new plan would still leave a $3.8 million hole in the budget.
Continue reading ‘Supt. Scraps Teacher Layoffs, Proposes Brennan-Rogers Closure’
by | Jun 20, 2025 4:46 pm | Comments (17)
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Brennan-Rogers "volunteer grandparent" Elizabeth Yarborough: "Why would you want to push them out their community?"
Brennan-Rogers educators Latrice Peterson, Paulette Bosley, Charlene Neal-Palmer, and parent Maria Harris-Paige: Fighting to keep their school open.
On a large poster board, Brennan-Rogers paraprofessional Joneya Kasperzyk wrote “Real kids. Real futures. Don’t close the door on our dreams,” as she and a dozen other staffers and parents gathered at the Shack to advocate for their West Rock public school not to be closed.
by | Jun 19, 2025 6:47 pm | Comments (17)
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At Brennan-Rogers graduation on Tuesday: Is this the school's last graduating class?
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Supt. Madeline Negrón is considering closing Brennan-Rogers School in the West Rock neighborhood in order to help address an estimated $16.5 million budget deficit.
by | Jun 19, 2025 4:24 pm | Comments (13)
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311 Valley St.: En route from NHPS to city ownership?
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Alder Smith: The former West Hills school should become a place for public meetings and other neighborhood activities.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) has officially begun the process of handing over to city government two vacant former school buildings in West Hills and Fair Haven Heights.
Continue reading ‘NHPS Seeks To Give City 2 Empty School Buildings’
by | Jun 18, 2025 4:31 pm | Comments (15)
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Assistant Principal Clarino (left): Newly transferred from Hooker to Beecher.
(Updated) New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Supt. Madeline Negrón has followed through on plans to transfer Worthington Hooker Assistant Principal Jenny Clarino to another school, despite months of advocacy by some staff and families to keep Clarino in place at the East Rock school.
Clarino’s transfer — along with the shuffling of seven other administrators to different schools across the district — took place at an end-of-year, online-only special Board of Education meeting that appears to have received only 21 hours, rather than the state-mandated minimum of 24 hours, of public notice.
Continue reading ‘Hooker AP Transferred; Meeting Notice Questioned’
by | Jun 17, 2025 5:43 pm | Comments (2)
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At Tuesday's eighth-grade promotion ceremony on Foote St.
Grad Dylan Garcia Castillo with mom Wailny: "Most of the teachers are really good and that's what makes the school the school."
Maya McFadden photo
Keynote speaker Sara Wexler, granddaughter of school's namesake Isadore Wexler: He was "a man who was ahead of his time."
Wexler-Grant School sent off its final eighth-grade class of 24 students Tuesday morning — as the Dixwell school community plans to leave its Foote Street building and merge with Newhallville’s Lincoln-Bassett School next academic year.
by | Jun 17, 2025 3:10 pm | Comments (1)
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Members of the Class of 2025 pose with their sixth-grade teachers.
Ronnie Oxendine celebrated graduating from 6th grade at Lincoln-Bassett Community School with 25 of his classmates Tuesday. Having enjoyed English Language Arts this year and playing basketball, he is excited to attend 7th and 8th grade in the same Newhallville building, following the planned merger of Lincoln-Bassett and Wexler-Grant into one PreK-8th grade school next academic year.
Oxendine’s family also celebrated his Attendance Award, “He’s a good boy,” his grandmother said fondly as Ronnie hid behind the helium “Grad!” balloons. “I know he’s going to have a bright and good future.”
Continue reading ‘Lincoln-Bassett Grads Look Forward To Staying Put’
by | Jun 17, 2025 3:09 pm | Comments (1)
Adam Walker Photos.
Keyren Teresa Adames delivers her graduation speech in Spanish.
Keyren Teresa Adames adjusted the Dominican Republic stole resting neatly on her shoulders and stepped up to the podium. With the auditorium quiet, she took a deep breath and began her speech — not in English, but entirely in Spanish, the language of her family, her childhood, and her story.
Her voice steady and proud, Adames spoke about family, community, and perseverance — offering not just reflections on middle school, but a celebration of the culture that shaped her.
A top academic student, Adames was one of 86 eighth graders to graduate from Fair Haven School during a Tuesday morning ceremony held in the Grand Avenue school’s auditorium.
by | Jun 17, 2025 2:46 pm | Comments (1)
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High school, here they come!
Evangeline Davila turned her tassel with 32 other eighth graders, in what marked her official graduation from Brennan-Rogers Magnet School on Tuesday morning.
by | Jun 17, 2025 1:39 pm | Comments (3)
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Hillhouse grad Tatiana Gaither: Future CCSU student-athlete.
At Hillhouse's 166th commencement.
Hillhouse senior class president Tatiana Gaither had one goal left to accomplish before becoming an official high school graduate, a goal she’s been chasing since her freshman year.
To speak at her own graduation.