Latino parents — and grandparents, like Jose Malitasig — were the focus as “Teach Our Children“ hit the streets of Fair Haven.
TOC, the leading citizens group pushing or more parental involvement in the schools, held an inaugural “Fiesta Communitaria” Saturday at the corner of Grand and Poplar. Dozens of kids and their parents showed up for a festive balance of entertainment, face-painting, pizza, and voter registration.
The event launched the parent advocacy group’s latest effort: a Fair-Haven based campaign to enroll more and more Latino families to advocate for their children’s rights in the New Haven public schools.
Longtime TOC leader Nilda Aponte is pictured on the right in the photo, with Scotty the Clown, and Malitasiz, one of TOC’s newest grandparent leaders. Aponte said she TOC’s current Latino membership is about 20 percent.
“Many of the Latino families in the city,” said Aponte, “just don’t know their rights. Contributing to this, of course, is they often don’t speak the language, and the kids often have language-related problems, like their placement in classes where they might not be receiving the help they need and of right should have.”
She said the group will be meeting once a month in Fair Haven (location yet to be determined). Unlike other TOC meetings, the Fair Haven gatherings will be conducted entirely in Spanish so the families feel comfortable. “We’re going to help people understand that even if they don’t speak English well, parents and kids are entitled to the very same educational rights. When they get our mission, the Latino group will join the regular TOC group, but recruitment is the goal for the first year or so.”
To that end, TOC has hired a bilingual coordinator and set up its first post-fiesta meeting for Aug. 4. Aponte was at pains to point out that no new organization is being founded, just a Spanish-language channel, as it were, of the same parent advocacy station.
One of her secret weapons, she said, will be individuals like Malitasig, the organization’s first active Latino grandparent. His grandkids’ parents work several jobs, he said, with long hours, so he is the primary adult involved in the lives of the two grandchildren, one at John Martinez and the other at a freshman at the Metropolitan Business Academy. He said he was active in his grandkids’ educational lives in his native Ecuador, and expects to be active here, too.
What most needs to be done?
“Cambios positivos,” he said in Spanish, with an eager effort to drop in phrases of English that he is learning. “Positive changes.” Teachers, he continued, need to be as focused on kids whose English is not so proficient as they are on the kids who speak easily. “La calidad. The quality.”
While Aponte and the other TOC leaders launch this new recruiting initiative, they said that they also have been working diligently with the Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Reginald Mayo.
A series of confrontational meetings in the spring resulted in Mayo’s promise to meet monthly with TOC on such issues as recess, discipline, and suspension policies.
Aponte and other leaders such as Tasha Smith and Quiana Simmons said progress is being made, more in tone than in substance so far.
“They no longer see us as crazy people,” said Tasha Smith. “They’re less resistant, the meetings have been good, they see us as partners who want the same things they do.”
Quiana Smith, whose kids go to Elm City Prep, added, “They’re more open to us on the subject of recess, for example.”
“We got him to agree to visit John Daniels, I believe,” said Aponte, “or one of the schools where they do have a full-fledged recess.
“I think he’s going to be talking with a number of principals about instituting it elsewhere. I mean if it’s successful in one school, why not in others? Dr. Mayo knows now that we’re not confrontational, we just have strong opinions. We agree on the same things, we just want him to produce results.”
“We can’t wait,” added, TOC Coordinator Gwendolyn Forrest, “until September.”
Meet the newest, and quite possibly the youngest member of Teach Our Children: Four-month-old John Henry Vatner was traveling in style with his mom Amy, a volunteer lawyer for TOC who specializes in special education law.
While well-named John Henry grabbed a reporter’s pencil with an steely, hard-driving eponymous grip, his mom, who works for the Connecticut Parent Advisory Center, said, “We’re especially interested in seeing what the Board of Ed’s new in-school suspension regulations will be. What kind of behavior will constitute a violation sufficient for out of school suspension?”
For the location of the Aug. 4 meeting and other TOC events, the contact is: 786‑5499 or this email.
