“Are our kids dirt?” Catherine Lawson asked. “We want to know: who made the decision, and are they qualified to make this decision?”
Lawson (pictured), a parent at the Dwight Early Childhood Learning Center, posed that question Tuesday night to the Board of Education.
She and parents of other children enrolled in the New Haven Daycare Program showed up to the Board of Ed meeting to register their outrage over a decision announced May 14 that the Dwight center and the daycare center at Immanuel Baptist Church will close June 30.
Parents at the board meeting Tuesday night expressed concerns about being finding new places to send their children, having their children switch schools multiple times within a few months, and the short period of notice they were given about school closures. Lawson called the way the Board of Ed handled the school closing “deplorable” and said that the parents of children at the center were “slighted.”
Superintendent of Schools Garth Harries responded to Lawson’s comment and parents’ requests that the decision be reconsidered.
“I’m very clear on the decision, and I made that decision,” he said. He explained that The New Haven Daycare Program, while providing valuable services, ran too steep a deficit to continue. The Board of Ed is finding the children government-subsidized spots at private daycare centers.
“I understand your passion – I absolutely do, and it was a hard decision,” Harries said. “But that said, the deficit that this program operated under that had to do with the model of the program and the union that was in question … meant that we were running a deficit this year that’s projected at over half a million dollars for just 50 students. That’s $10,000 a student.”
Harries (pictured at the meeting with Mayor Toni Harp) said the school system is trying to make sure that the students at these centers find other care providers after these centers shut down. As of Tuesday, 12 of 18 infants and toddlers have confirmed spaces in a community-based program and 10 of 29 pre‑K students have spots at other schools.
Because of fiscal challenges, he inevitably had to make tough decisions, Harries said; ultimately, a deficit takes resources away from other students in the city.
Diana Li Photo
Parent Andrea Hutchison (pictured) complained that she was surprised by the closure news on May 14.
“We should have a say, because we’re the ones that voted you into office,” Hutchison said to cheers from other parents in the crowd. “The media calls us ‘angry parents,’ and that’s because we have every right to be angry: You come to the community to get voted in, so come to the community to talk to us. We’re going to talk back and, you may not like what we have to say, but at least we can be heard.”
After the meeting, Harries said the board started publicly discussing the daycare closures back in January. Mayor Harp held a meeting with concerned parents last week, and plans to hold another meeting with both them and Harries this Friday afternoon.
"We should have a say, because we're the ones that voted you into office," Hutchison said to cheers from other parents in the crowd.
Unfortunately we REALLY didn't vote Garth into his position. It's kinda like George Bush's second term, we the people REALLY didn't vote him in again but the governor of Florida (BOE president) would like you to believe you did. Just keep drinking the Meadow St Kool-Aid at the expense of our kids future and the teachers' union.