Principals Chart Path To Students’ Presence

Home visits, award ceremonies, and morning announcements to Conte West scholars that ​“every day counts” and ​“it’s cool to be in school” helped the Wooster Square magnet school decrease its chronic absenteeism rate by 13 percent since the start of the school year. 

Conte West Hills Magnet School Principal Kenneasha Sloley presented those efforts — and their successes so far — to the school board members during the latest regular online-only meeting of the Board of Education on Monday. 

New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Supt. Iline Tracey invited Sloley and Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS) Principal Medria Blue-Ellis to the board meeting to share about the daily work happening at their respective schools. The presentations took place as the district as a whole struggles with high rates of students not going to class.

This year, Sloley said, Conte has focused its academic and extracurricular efforts on encouraging the ​“curiosity of our explorers as well as the creativity of our innovators.”

“One of the things that we do often [is] ask ourselves, we say, ​‘What makes our students curious?’ And when do, we actually see the students’ faces light up [at] our school,” she said. ​“So we then take those observations into account to make sure that our classrooms are collaborative and that it supports our creative thinkers.” 

Click here to view the principals’ presentations in full.

"Your Attendance Matters, Conte Lions"

As a result of these efforts and partnering closely with the district’s truancy team, Sloley said that Conte’s chronic absenteeism numbers are on the decline — from 54.7 percent of students chronically absent to 41.30 percent since the start of the school year. (The district defines chronic absenteeism as when a student misses 10 percent or more of the total number of school days.)

Home visits have helped the school to identify families’ social, emotional, physical, health, transportation, and housing barriers and to provide them with resources to better the students’ attendance, Sloley said. 

“This ended up fostering stronger working relations with families and students,” she added. 

Sloley said the school has also been using its morning announcements to reinvigorate students about coming to school and to celebrate their attendance. 

“We may often times chant: ​‘Your attendance matters, Conte lions,’ ” she said, referring to the school’s mascot. Other morning announcement messages include: “ ​‘Everyday counts.’ ​‘Being in school matters.’ ​‘You matter.’ And you know what, ​‘It’s cool to be in school.’ ” 

As the school continues to improve its connections with families, Sloley said she expects the percentage of chronically absent students to continue to decline. 

In her presentation Sloley said the school’s mission of ​“academic risk taking” motivates students to learn from their fears and anxieties. This is possible by having a real-world based curriculum that ​“makes it more viable for them to maintain their interest.” 

Conte teachers and staff work towards those goals through project-based learning, offering leadership opportunities for students, seasonal sports teams, and field work. 

Sloley highlighted that the school aims to pair students with a trusted adult to mentor them and to have staff, especially newer staff, have a colleague mentor for support. 

Sloley also said that students have improved in literacy so far this year. She reported that 51 percent of kindergartners are currently working in or above grade level. At the start of the school year, 68 percent of those same students were below grade level. For sixth graders, 51 percent of students have moved from foundational skills to intermediate and advanced in the Power Up program. Sixty six percent of seventh graders have moved from foundational skills to intermediate and advanced. Sixty percent of eighth graders have moved from foundational to intermediate and advanced. 

In the school district’s interim math iReady assessment, she added, 71 percent of fourth graders scored at or above standard with numbers and operations, 64 percent of sixth graders scored at or above standard with number systems, and 67 percent of seventh graders scored at or above standard with number systems.

“Not everyday is a smooth and bubbly day, but for what it’s worth, optimism that lies within the school community helps to push us through and motivate us every day,” Sloley said. 

Sloley concluded that the school has hosted several celebratory gatherings for families and students to connect with the school and community and recognize students’ successes. 

“It lets them know that their hard work is appreciated. Now this is a powerful mindset to have in the classroom as it encourages students to feel better about the work that they’re able to complete as well as how they feel about themselves,” Sloley said. ​“Now this promotes a sense of pride which goes hand and hand with happiness.”

"Thinking Classrooms" & Student Agency

This year’s theme at ESUMS is ​“future forward progressive learning for tomorrow’s leaders,” which helps to organize the school year’s instruction, Blue-Ellis said during her presentation to the school board Monday night.

Blue-Ellis said several of the school’s new efforts were inspired from research she completed last year as a Fulbright scholar in Singapore. 

This year the school introduced a new course in alignment with its theme of ​“nurturing the joy of learning.” That course uses the MasterClass platform, which offers students access to more than 150 instructors from all around the globe. 

“Students study specific courses that are linked to their personal interest,” Blue-Ellis said. 

This year ESUMS students enrolled in MasterClass courses teaching sales/persuasion, teamwork, chess, investigative journalism, philanthropy, and cooking. 

Blue-Ellis shared about one student who took philanthropy and social justice MasterClass courses with philanthropist Melinda Gates. As a result of that student connecting what they learned in the course with their computer science class, they then developed a phone app geared toward high school students interested in social justice. 

The goal is to develop agency in ESUMS students, Blue-Ellis said. 

ESUMS also redesigned its math department to have what Blue-Ellis described as ​“thinking classrooms.” 

The math ​“thinking classrooms” push for students to do their work on a variety of classroom surfaces like their desks and windows, allowing them to stand as they work. More peer-to-peer discourse is encouraged and teachers are shifting away from teacher-centric instruction to empower student agency. 

ESUMS math educators have been presenting on ​“thinking classrooms” and its math equity plan to CT Math Association. One ESUMS educator was tapped to present nationally, Blue-Ellis said. 

Its five-year equity plan has the goal to get every 2028 ESUMS graduate to take and pass an AP math class. 

A new media and tech for social justice department was also created out of the existing technology department. The addition allows students to apply different technology skills to their learning about a social justice topic of their interest. The students create physical animations to make a difference on topics including reproductive rights, deforestation, drug addiction, and climate change.