Worthington Hooker’s K‑2 students danced around the maypole to celebrate the coming of spring, and the re-opening of their newly renovated 107-year old school.
The renovation took 18 months and cost $12.9 million. School board members, aldermen and state representatives joined Hooker families and alumni for Sunday’s event at Worthington, which will house students through 2nd grade. They were eager as well to move forward with the construction of the Hooker school’s proposed new building for 3rd through 8th grades, a project stalled by some neighborhood opposition.
Principal Carol Kennedy said the renovations “brought out the history and brought the building up to the 21st century.”
p(clear). The renovations include a new music room (pictured), a computer-equipped literacy center and library; restorations of the original Roman Bas relief sculpture, and new lighting to highlight wood beams that were hand painted during the 1930s.
p(clear). When media specialist Beth Hart came to Worthington Hooker in 1998, there was no such thing as a “media specialist.” The school’s library, she said, was a stack of used books in a basement. The only computer was donated by parents. The new literacy center at Worthington has five computers and two big-screen televisions. Pictured is a digital oral history of Worthington alumni.
p(clear). The Worthington and Hooker schools are known as the best in the city, according to parents at the event. Board of Education President Brian Perkins, who lives in the Beaver Hills neighborhood, said after looking at many different schools in New Haven, he enrolled all three of his daughters in Worthington-Hooker. Perkins rattled off a list of features he liked about the school — an international student body made up largely of the children of Yale graduate students and professors; a music instructor who takes children to state competition on a Saturday, without receiving any extra pay; and a closely knit “family” of involved parents.
p(clear). “The plane has landed,” said Schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo. “One down, one to go.”
p(clear). He was referring to the construction of Hooker middle school, which has been delayed by a court order to halt construction after Everit street residents filed suit. Read about that decision here. To read about progress in that case, click here .
p(clear). Diane Polan (pictured) was one of the first advocates of a middle school for Worthington students. Polan, an attorney, predicted the Everit street residents’ case would be dismissed by the state’s highest court in June, and charged the residents were afraid of people who look different from them walking around their neighborhood.
p(clear). “Because of their elitist and racist values,” Polan said, “they are costing this project a lot of money and a lot of time.”
p(clear). The neighbors argue that the school is planned for the wrong location, and that the city misused its zoning powers to put it there. The neighbors’ attorney also told the State Supreme Court that putting a playground in what’s now a church parking lot would drive down property values.
p(clear). Polan said she moved two blocks away from Worthington so that her twin daughters could walk to elementary school. Three years before they were about to enter middle school, she and some other parents began to pressure Superintendent Mayo for a middle school to put Worthington graduates, Polan said. Before Hooker was established, she said most students went to private school, applied for magnet schools, or were sent to Fair Haven middle schools. One of her daughters is this year’s valedictorian at Wilbur Cross High School.
The residents of Everit Street are not racist and elitist, Ms. Polan. I do not live on Everit Street but have been closely following the proceedings. Yes, the issue is about finding a suitable home for the school, but also at issue is ensuring that the City does not abuse the zoning code. It is the City that has been wasting time and money. I would like to set the record straight about the site selection process in which I participated. The #1 site selected by the neighborhood vote was the COMBINED site of the church and the Red Cross building - which would have given the school enough room for its needs without impinging on the RS1 zone in the rear. The site with just the church alone was ranked much farther down on the preference list. When the Red Cross site proved to be unavailable, no other sites on the list were seriously considered. Then the City overpaid for the church ($1.7 million for a building appraised at $1.4 million) without getting the necessary approvals.
People have been accusing the Everit Street residents of using their money to get what they want. That is unfair. The case has been argued in front of several courts, and these judges are making their decision according to the law. Are you accusing people of buying the decision, of bribing the judges??