Common Ground’s Green Approach Wins Recognition

Eliana Solano sketched a virus with a diamond-shaped head and insect-like legs next to an Earth on fire, books, dollars and the word ​“expectations” in big block letters. The drawings partially filled a globe of anxieties and other thoughts held up by a small sketch of Solano herself.

Local artist Kwadwo Adae was warming the Common Ground High School class up for a group art project about climate change and its effects on students’ lives. Adae has visited the class weekly to build up to the project — one of numerous nontraditional, eco-conscious approaches that recently won the school a national award and a state seal of approval.

On March 2, the U.S. Green Building Council and Green Schools National Network picked Common Ground out of schools from across the country as a leader in sustainability. And the state has renewed its charter.

Common Ground is a 225-student, environmentally-focused charter school nestled near West Rock Park and Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU).

Global warming is on Solano’s mind, she said as she pointed to her drawing of the Earth on fire. The 10th grader said that she has not decided what she wants to do with her career. She is leaning towards becoming an environmental engineer so she can reconfigure the land to better adapt to climate change.

For example, the New Haven area used to be full of swamps that are better adapted to flooding than farmland, she explained. She said she was learning about this in one of her classes.

Another student, 10th grader Chloe Jenkins (pictured above), said that one of her favorite classes is social studies because the teacher is so engaging. Her eyes lit up as she explained the most recent lesson on the differences between handling carbon emissions with a cap-and-trade program versus a carbon tax.

“With a cap-and-trade program, companies get a set allowance [of how much carbon they can emit], but they can sell their allowance. It’s kind of like cheating but not,” she said.

Teaching Green Wins Awards

The U.S. Green Building award ​“is a big honor,” said school director Liz Cox. ​“We have an environmental justice mission. It shows up in classes to the buildings to placing students in green jobs to leadership programs after school. The award is for the all of it.”

Director of Impact and Engagement Joel Tolman said the school’s regional leadership helped distinguish it from other applicants. Common Ground has been helping other New Haven schools build gardens and outdoor classrooms, he said.

The environmental mission has always come easily to Common Ground, Cox said. Mixing that with academic rigor has been harder.

The state recently reviewed Common Ground’s charter and unanimously decided to renew it for another three years.

The state Department of Education’s renewal came with one stated concern: a dip in SAT scores in the 2018 – 2019 school year.

“Public education won’t let you ignore certain high school standards for long. We lived through years with our backs against the wall to figure it out,” Cox said.

The school is now incorporating more math, reading and writing support across all grade levels.

Another solution is a senior portfolio where students present on the experiences that have helped them grow the most during high school and how those experiences contribute to a better world. Peers, their families and staff members judge the portfolios and presentations.

“It’s very intense. You have to pass it to graduate,” Cox said.

“Everyone meets this standard, though it might not be on the first try,” Tolman added.

Student Leaders

At the same time that Solano and Jenkins were sketching out their anxieties, another group of Common Ground students (pictured above) was acting them out under the guidance of their teacher, Sarah Bowles.

A junior stood at the center of the imaginary stage while other students walked in a circle around them, repeating chants until the student in the middle screamed and fell on their knees.

The scene was about mental health among LGBTQ students. The circling students represented depression, body dysphoria and other thoughts.

Bowles said she was surprised so many students settled on this theme.

“It made me think that it affects a much wider community than we think,” she said.

The scene will become part of a larger play about substance abuse, relationships and consent, white privilege and racism, and the political environment – all tied together under the theme of prisms.

“The idea of a prism is that it slows down a beacon of light. Things are much more complex once you slow down and unpack what’s underneath,” Bowles said.

Common Ground brought Bowles in last year after a senior advocated for a social justice theater program. Bowles is an adjunct professor at Southern and the education program manager at the Elm Shakespeare Company.

This is an example, Bowles said, of Common Ground listening to student voices and knowing when to bring in partners to fill in outside of their focus area.

She said that she did not ask the class to incorporate any environmental themes, since they already know so much about the topic. However, climate change will come up in the section of the play about the political environment and why people hold beliefs despite evidence to the contrary, she said.

Students earn credit at Southern for the class, which is similar to a beginning theater class Bowles teaches there. Bowles has brought the students on two field trips to Southern and New York to see plays. Bowles said the plays have continued to inspire the students with new ideas for their own production.

“I think it’s going to be really good. I’m hoping this virus stuff gets resolved,” Bowles said.

Southern has agreed to host the Common Ground play at the Lyman Center’s black box theater. The coronavirus has created a snag in Bowles’ plans though — SCSU has canceled all classes for the next five days and plans to move classes online until at least April 5 to prevent the spread of the disease.

If all resumes as normal by late May, Common Ground students plan to perform ​“Prism” on May 26.