Students Walk Out For School Funding

“I’m sure they have all nice bathrooms,” said Makayla Spell, gesturing at Yale’s School of Music. ​“We don’t have soap in our bathrooms.”

Spell was marching through Yale’s campus amongst about 200 fellow New Haven high schoolers on Friday afternoon, as part of a student-led walkout to protest for more education funding.

Students convened from numerous high schools at noon on the New Haven Green, marched along the sidewalks of Yale’s campus, and then circled back to the Green. All the while, they called for Yale, the state of Connecticut, and the federal government to contribute more funding to New Haven Public Schools.

The protest transpired as the public school system contends with an anticipated $16.5 million shortfall in the coming school year. New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Supt. Madeline Negrón has said that 129 school employees — primarily teachers, paraeducators, librarians, and math and reading coaches — may be laid off if the shortfall is not closed. 

Days after the Board of Alders voted to increase the schools’ budget by no more than $5 million, student protesters called out state politicians for inaction in the face of stark school inequities from town to town. They also called on Yale University to redistribute part of its $41 billion endowment to better fund public schools.

An eleventh grader at Hill Regional Career High School, Spell said she’s seen how underfunding schools can translate to a dejected and even unsafe school culture. Students who don’t have adequate support from adults sometimes turn to bullying or worse, Spell observed. ​“Defunding [NHPS] is making New Haven an unsafe space in general,” she said. 

“Look at what they have,” Spell said as she walked through Yale’s campus. She pointed to Yale’s status as a historically white university, compared to the majority of NHPS students who are Black and Brown. ​“I feel like Yale is biased,” said Spell. 

Speaking into a megaphone, Ambar Santiago-Rojas called on Yale to contribute more financial resources to the city and especially to its school system. She pointed out Yale’s critique of the Trump administration’s proposed endowment tax, which university leaders have referred to as an existential threat to research and financial aid. 

“If they oppose the federal tax, then they must step up locally,” Santiago-Rojas urged. ​“There is no excuse for a $40 billion institution to watch our classrooms fall apart.”

The student activists also called out differences between school conditions in New Haven compared to other towns.

“What makes a student from Cross and a student from Amity so different?” Oren Mendieta asked into a megaphone.

Insufficient funding will make an already-dire school budget even worse next year, the students warned.

“We are watching the future of our education deteriorate before our eyes,” said Hajar Abdelfadel, a ninth grader at Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS).

Students repeatedly criticized the Trump administration, including Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education as well as anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies that have left many families fearful of deportation and separation. Several pointed to capitalism as the source of many funding woes, including representatives of the Socialist Alternative political party, which had distributed signs to many students.

Though the protest was entirely student-organized, the students received support from NHPS administrators as well as the teachers union.

“I am impressed with our students! This makes me proud to be a New Haven alum,” said Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Keisha Redd-Hanans. ​“Our students are advocating not just for ourselves but for future generations of students.”

“I want to commend you for your organization, your courage,” echoed teachers union President Leslie Blatteau, who encouraged students to continue their advocacy in the long term: ​“I’ll see you in the organizing meetings!”

Throughout Friday’s protest, student organizers reminded their peers to remain on the sidewalks. 

“We’re here to be peaceful and non-violent,” said student Board of Ed representative John Carlos Serana Musser. ​“All great movements are non-violent.”

The walkout’s lead organizers were Abdelfadel and New Haven Academy eleventh grader Tomitsela Engel-Halfkenny — neither of whom had led a protest before. 

They said they felt especially moved to speak out for more funding after learning how educators in their own school communities would be affected by the impending layoffs.

Engel-Halfkenny recalled recently learning that her school’s librarian could be let go. She described the librarian as an anchor of student support in the school. ​“We all have such deep relationships with our teachers,” Engel-Halfkenny said. ​“Without that support, everything falls apart.”

The pair said they fear that the layoffs and other effects of a budget shortfall could have consequences for a whole generation of NHPS students.

“I’m a freshman,” said Abdelfadel. ​“I don’t want to go through high school with everything getting worse and worse.”

“We are doing this for the future of our sisters and our brothers, and our cousins, and our future children,” said Engel-Halfkenny in a speech closing out the protest.