Parents Turn Out To Back Charter Renewals

The Achievement First charter network might have its flaws, but that doesn’t mean its New Haven schools should close, supporters told state officials weighing their future.

The parents and teachers turned out for a two-hour public hearing in Wilbur Cross High School’s darkened auditorium to tell the Connecticut State Board of Education why it should again renew the charters for Amistad Academy and Elm City College Preparatory, which are managed by the non-profit Achievement First.

Those charters enroll just over 1,800 New Haven students, almost exclusively black and brown kids, in five buildings across the city, including AF Amistad High School on Dixwell Avenue.

The State Board of Education will hold its charter renewal meeting on Feb. 6, 2020, a spokesperson said.

Known for rigorous academics and strict discipline, elementary schoolers routinely outperform the state on standardized tests and high-schoolers take multiple Advanced Placement classes and matriculate to to top colleges.

“We are one of the greatest high schools in the U.S.A.,” said Luis Quinones, a junior who wants to pursue computer engineering at Central Connecticut State University.

“Academically, Amistad High School has changed me as a person greatly, due to the fact of how public high schools don’t really care for you at all whatsoever. They won’t really give you the mental support that you need,” like he does for his ADHD, he said. ​“Really it’s us, as students, who represent Amistad High in how we treat each other and the teachers that come to work every day at 6 o’clock in the morning just to make sure that we go to college.”

Charter schools are privately operated (by an outside manager, like Achievement First, that state authorizers periodically review) and publicly funded (by state per-pupil grants that donors supplement). They aren’t bound by all the same rules as traditional public schools, allowing them to teach longer days.

During the last charter review in 2017, the state granted Amistad Academy and Elm City College Prep three-year renewals, short of the five-year maximum allowed by law.

It said that the schools needed to minimize behaviors that are causing so many suspensions and expulsions and hire faculty members that are legally authorized to teach.

After checking off the state’s requirements, the charters have come up for review again amid a trying year for Achievement First, as the state has scrutinized the way the network let its administrators get away with misconduct.

Its high school principal abruptly quit after the Independent published a video of him shoving a student, and a subsequent external investigation concluded that Achievement First had repeatedly overlooked red flags. Teachers, meanwhile, protested against ​“the systematic racial inequalities that are observable throughout the network.”

The Connecticut State Department of Education opened its own investigation to see if the school had racially discriminated against students.

While it didn’t find any violations of federal civil-rights law, it faulted Achievement First for focusing on ​“control and compliance” over ​“mutually respectful and appropriately caring relationships.”

The 10-page report, which the Independent obtained through the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act, said that the network had ​“created and sustained an unjust school culture and climate that, according to students, causes them to feel anxious, disrespected and oppressed.”

“[S]tudents and staff reported their skepticism that meaningful, systemic change will occur to support positive and sustainable transformation of a school environment that remains unnecessarily prescriptive and punishing,” the state concluded. ​“The sentiment expressed is that [Achievement First] and [Amistad High School] administration does things to students and staff rather than with them.”

But at last week’s hearing, nearly every student, parent and teacher said there was still enormous value in Achievement First’s model, which they acknowledged as imperfect.

“Our school isn’t perfect, and as a network we’ve had a lot of ups and downs. We have a lot of room to grow, and we’re all really aware of that,” said Meghan Cawley, a writing teacher at the middle school for the last nine years. ​“But I mainly believe in the teachers that I work with every day, and they believe in bringing the best out in the students. We want to push for social justice, so that each student has access to an amazing education.”

Tanesha Forman, a fifth-grade teacher at Elm City, said she’d also seen the network’s efforts to do better firsthand.

After she asked about the lack of diversity in her school’s administration, her principal invited her to give a presentation to the rest of the staff. She said the school is now reviewing its policies with an anti-racist lens and holding weekly sessions on equity and inclusion.

“I can attest that each time we’ve fallen short, it has made our community stronger,” Forman said. ​“We’re working hard every day to convey that every student belongs in our school. We’re learning, and we’re not afraid to say that we must urgently do better for our students and our community.”

Supporters pointed out that consistently high test scores had filled up New Haven’s wait lists with families eager to claim a desk, which eventually allowed Achievement First to expand to Hartford, New York City and Providence.

They said that, whatever issues they might have with the network overall, it was obvious that teachers cared deeply about the kids in their classrooms.

And they compared the charters to New Haven’s traditional public schools, where they said parents feel excluded and misbehavior interrupts learning.

Andrea Hutchison, the mother of a 7‑year-old at Amistad’s elementary school, credited Achievement First’s ​“passionate” teachers, structured curriculum and, most of all, constant communication with parents with helping her youngest get almost a full year ahead of grade level in reading.

“They keep you informed of everything about your child,” she said. ​“I would get a call, ​‘Listen, [your son] stubbed his toe, and we just wanted to call you and let you know.’”

Even though Achievement First’s system of demerits can be controversial, Hutchison said it results in fewer disruptions. She said her other boys had struggled in New Haven Public Schools, where she felt teachers actually had to spend more time on discipline — to the point where it seemed like some eventually just gave up, feeling unsupported by their principals.

“This is working,” Hutchison said. ​“I wish all my kids went to Amistad. Don’t send our babies out there to regular public school, because they will fail.”

Ruziye Yeroz said that, after her family emigrated from Turkey, private schools wouldn’t take her kids because they didn’t speak enough English. Wanting ​“the best education for our children,” she’s now sent all her five kids to Achievement First’s schools, where she says teachers are willing to work with students, ​“regardless of learning challenges.”

“I don’t always like all the rules at Amistad, but the rules are there to help the students in life,” Yeroz said. ​“When they graduate, they are able to be independent and responsible.”

And Anais Nunez, the mother of a 3rd-grader and 5th-grader at Elm City’s elementary school, said she’s ​“proud parent” because of how well her daughters are doing in their studies.

“I compare what they wouldn’t have learned, had they been in a failing neighborhood district school,” she said. ​“It surprised me when I learned that the state gave more funding to schools in our community where children are, sadly, reading and doing math below grade level.”

Compared to the public hearings in 2017, where not a single person spoke out against the charters’ renewals, some critics did show up on Thursday, deploring the lack of transparency and accountability from the network.

Julie Hajducky, a sophomore at Amistad High School, said that, like the parents who’d spoken before her, she’d been excited by the school’s academic reputation. But after she arrived, she felt the school had a ​“toxic culture,” whose high test scores were undermined by high suspension and turnover rates.

When Hajducky tried to talk to administrators, she said they brushed her off, leaving her feeling ​“ignored, silenced and disrespected.” After the principal resigned for shoving one of her classmates, said she’d hoped the school would finally listen.

“Many surface-level changes have been made, but it seems as if the same system that allowed a man to put his hands on a kid and get away with it still exists as strong as ever,” Hajducky said. ​“How many more moments of reckoning do we need to have for the system to change?”

“When student feedback is glossed over, when teachers are afraid to speak out for fear of retaliation, when amazing teachers are pushed out of our school because of its oppressive systems, how are we ever going to hold ourselves accountable?” she went on. ​“We can no longer sacrifice teacher and student well-being for our rankings and test scores. We need to do better for our students and our families.”