Common Ground Lands Grants For Student-Led Projects

When Malek Alkhalawe graduates from Common Ground High School this spring, he will already have in hand several serious Google IT certifications allowing him to start his own business online while studying computer engineering in college.

For this he can thank not his teachers (well, not only them) but also his fellow students at the West Park environment-themed charter school like Asia Vilsaint who wrote a successful $20,000 grant to the state Department of Education to pioneer not only IT certifications but also course work leading to employment certificates in other fields, like food and health, so kids can graduate with serious vocational tools already in place.

On Wednesday morning, State Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker, New Haven State Rep Toni Walker and other dignitaries were on hand to congratulate the students and to watch some of the learning in action.

Common Ground scored two of the 57 Voice4Change grants — from a total pot of $1 million — awarded statewide for student-initiated and student-voted on projects.

The program allowed high schools students across Connecticut to weigh in on how some of the federal pandemic-relief ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds should be spent to support the students’ return to in-person learning.

“Kids know what they need,” said Charley Kenyon, a governor’s fellow in the state Department of Education, who assisted with the project. ​“And when they have an augmented voice, they really are leading their elders.”

He said the overwhelming number of projects submitted statewide were for projects leading to stress reduction. And Common Ground scored one of those too, a $7,000 anti-stress initiative spearheaded by junior Diana Isidoro.

Her project, whose centerpiece features what she calls ​“peace corners” envisioned throughout the school, will allow kids undergoing stress that impedes their concentration to have another alternative other than leaving class. Instead they can go into a designated area and chill in their fashion while still taking in the ongoing lesson.

“I noticed students struggling with focus when they returned to school,” Isidoro explained to the commissioner and her audience. 

So she proposed the idea of these corners that might provide an option, other than leaving the classroom, for moments when a kid is too upset to focus in a traditional way, like while sitting at a desk. Isidoro said students in the peace corners could still benefit from being within earshot of the lesson and the teacher’s voice.

“How we make it a reality” is still a work in progress, said Common Ground’s long-time Director of Community Impact and Engagement Joel Tolman. Already the art and health teachers are beginning to pilot the spaces in their classrooms and the kinds of activities that will take place there, he added.

Isidoro, however, already had a clear idea of what a corner might consist of: ​“I’m imagining the feel of the room when I was a child. Maybe a bean bag and a book shelf, a place where you can do your work. I can listen to the teacher while being in my own moment.”

While Diana’s project is in the pilot stage, the program Asia Vilsaint pioneered, is in full swing. A recent alum now taking nursing courses at nearby Southern Connecticut State University, Vilsaint came back to describe to the visiting lawmakers the genesis of the early vocational certification idea she created.

“I would have loved to have this while I was here,” she said

Vilsaint knows about starting early. While a senior, she was one of about 40 Common Ground students who every year take concurrent classes at SCSU. ​“You can start early and you can finish early.”

As part of the the grant’s eligibility, Vilsaint surveyed fellow students about the kinds of certifications they thought important.

The result is that in addition to the Google IT certification, Tolman said plans are underway for all students in the school, before they graduate, to be certified in First Aid/CPR.

That’s no small thing as having that certification in hand allows young people to obtain employment at, for example, summer camps, or in other child or nursing settings where otherwise they might be turned down.

In addition first First Aid/CPR certifications, also in the works as part of the grant will be opportunities for students to earn their state ServSafe certification through passing a food-handling course that will position the kids for work in restaurants and other food-related fields.

While the overwhelming majority of the projects statewide focused on social and emotional learning, Kenyon said one school in Danbury received a grant for such a simple, yet powerful, improvement as installing more water fountains. Another school, in Norwalk, received funding for a fencing club.

But Common Ground is the only school state-wide with a student-conceived vocational certification program.

After offering her accolades to Isidoro and Vilsaint and the Common Ground teachers and staff, Commissioner Russell-Tucker said, ​“I’m thinking about how to keep this going [beyond the $1 million ARPA funding set-aside]. This is civic engagement at its best.”