nothin District Picks New Principals, Leaving Two… | New Haven Independent

District Picks New Principals, Leaving Two Schools Behind

Christopher Peak Photo

Nick Perrone: Leaving so soon?

As summer vacation nears its end, two elementary schools learned that they won’t have a permanent principal in place on the first day of classes, on an otherwise celebratory night welcoming new leaders into New Haven’s public schools.

Parents at John C. Daniels Inter-District School of International Communication and Quinnipiac Real World Math STEM Magnet School found out that their current administrators would be headed to other leadership positions within city schools at a special Board of Education meeting, held Thursday evening at Celentano School, leaving unanswered questions about who would step in to lead the schools.

While one board member demanded answers about who’d be in charge of those two schools next year, the majority of the Board of Ed said they didn’t want to hold up personnel changes until the superintendent figures out a better way to fill principal openings.

ELL Director Pedro Mendia-Landa, Special Ed Supervisor Kara Buontempo, and Ross Woodward Principal Robert Davis.

After a long discussion about transferring principals in August, the school board voted to approve the promotion of Pedro Mendia-Landa to director of English learners, the hire of Kara Buontempo as a special education supervisor and Robert Davis as Ross-Woodward’s principal, and the transfer of Nicholas Perrone as Edgewood’s principal.

That meant that Daniels, where Mendia-Landa had been serving as interim principal after Daniel Bonet was put on paid administrative leave, and Quinnipiac, where Perrone had been promoted to principal a year ago, were left in the lurch.

Maria Flores and Marta Rodriguez-Blanco: Concerned about leadership at John C. Daniels School.

During public comment, two parents from Daniels — an elementary school praised for its cutting-edge bilingual program, its dedicated teaching staff and its active parent involvement — said they felt that their school is nearing a breaking point.

Marta Rodriguez-Blanco, a mother of three who serves as the school PTO’s secretary, said that since her oldest son entered kindergarten and readies to move on to high school in 2020, there have been five principals, one of them interim.

Without leadership, our community is in distress,” Rodriguez-Blanco said. You don’t have to be an expert in education to know that such inconsistency in leadership has to affect our students’ learning and the overall climate of the school. My son has already noticed it and tells me about the incongruences of too many educational approaches and continuous introduction of new rules during his elementary years. They have affected his learning, how comfortable he felt at the school at times, and as a result, it’s very likely they have affected his academic performance.

Therefore, it’s time for the district to reevaluate and improve the process and protocols for selecting a new principal for our school,” she added. In the past, some decisions were not transparent enough. We feel the system has failed us. Since our school has been excessively punished by change, there is no more space for error.”

Rodriguez-Blanco said she didn’t want to see Mendia-Landa go, calling him a perfect fit” who brought calm” and reassured us” at a difficult moment for Daniels, but she congratulated him for his promotion, saying the new role would allow him to have a more profound effect on the success” of all English-language learners in our district.

Rodriguez-Blanco concluded that she wanted the new principal, whoever it might be, to be able to speak Spanish and respect the school’s staff that has kept the school open in times of uncertainty.”

Maria Flores, another parent at Daniels, whose fourth grader, she said, is just in love with the school,” explained that she doesn’t want to lose everything that teachers and parents have held together while Bonet has been on leave.

I want to urge the need for leadership in this school at this moment [because] we are in a state of crisis in the school,” she said. It’s a gem among schools. When I first walked into that school, I just felt a special something. The teachers are passionate, but we need strong leadership.”

Flores added, Please help us get our school back on track.”

(After the meeting ended, Assistant Superintendent Iline Tracey said that Superintendent Carol Birks, who’s out on vacation, would be reviewing the results of the internal investigation into Bonet’s conduct and deciding whether to post a new job opening soon.)

Iline Tracey: Don’t hold up what most Edgewood parents asked for.

While no parents from Quinnipiac spoke during public comment, Tamiko Jackson-McArthur, the board’s secretary, said she worried that the superintendent’s decision to transfer Perrone to Edgewood might be setting the small school up for the same disarray, undoing the remarkable gains, especially in math scores, the school has notched on standardized tests.

Jackson-McArthur said that some parents had privately told her that they were worried that Perrone had been picked because he had children in the school already.

I wonder for Quinnipiac how destabilizing that is, after they just went through a change,” after Grace Nathman had just been transferred to Celentano at the start of last school year. Was the principal there long enough?” she asked.

Ed Joyner, one of the board’s two elected members, said he agreed with Jackson-McArthur’s point, and he said a special committee should take a broader look at how educators are assigned to schools. But, Joyner went on, he didn’t feel that now, a few weeks from the start of the school year, was the right time to deal with that bigger issue.

This is a sustained problem that you raise as a very important issue. Before it gets to an open board meeting, we should have a clear rationale for transferring the person and assurance that the system itself remains stabilized,” he said. I think the system has to have something in place that assures the public — and all the parents in the schools affected — that this is an open, transparent process that is ultimately in the best interest of the children.”

Assistant Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans said that Perrone had applied for a job at a bigger school, and, after a very comprehensive principal selection,” Edgewood’s school planning and management team had picked him to replace Shanta Smith.

She said that Perrone wont just abandon” Quinnipiac, as he plans to stay at the school through the start of the school year.

Tracey added that not approving Perrone’s transfer would set the process back.” I strongly believe that we should not be upsetting the whole communities of people,” she said. We have whole schools to get ready.”

After board members approved voted down Jackson-McArhur’s motion to table the transfer, and then unanimously approved all the personnel moves, Perrone credited Jackson-McArthur for bringing up the issue and he said it would guide the way he approached his new job.

While I am sad to leave Quinnipiac, I am absolutely thrilled for the very unique opportunity to deepen my roots at Edgewood, not just as an existing parent but as a principal,” he said. It is important we hear concerns, that we are transparent about that, that we don’t shy away from them and ignore that they exist. That’s where bigger problems happen. To that point, it’s going to be extremely important that, during my time there, in a very transparent, qualitative study, I will be hearing voice from every stakeholder within the community. Any concerns that do come up, we’ll be transparent and address during that time.”

Clockwise, from upper left: Riverside’s Derek Stephenson, Labor Relation’s Taryn Bonner, Barnard’s Robert McCain, and Early Learning’s Pamela Augustine-Jefferson.

In the past few months, the district has lost Chief Operating Officer Will Clark, Deputy Superintendent Velazquez, Assistant Superintendent Gil Traverso, Director of English Language Learners Abie Benitez, Director of College & Career Pathways Dolores Garcia-Blocker, IT Director Kevin Moriarty, Special Education Supervisor Patrica Moore, Labor Relations Officer Vallerie Hudson-Brown and High School Arts Director Timothy Jones.

While Superintendent Birks was out on vacation during this week’s special meeting, Redd-Hannans subbed in. To a round of applause from the parents and teachers in Celentano’s cafetorium, she said that Birks had decided to leave three of those positions vacant, at least for the next school year

By not replacing the deputy superintendent, an assistant superintendent and the director of college and career pathways — in keeping with a budget-balancing task force’s recommendation — the district will save $507,777, Redd-Hannans said.

Redd-Hannans added that the departure of so many employees wasn’t unusual. Each year, she said, hundreds of full-time employees leave the school system.

For example, last school year, 171 resigned, 65 retired, 20 were laid off, 9 were fired and 4 died, Redd-Hannans pointed out, though she later said she hadn’t tallied up how many of those were administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals or other staff.

Earlier this summer, to fill other vacancies, the school board voted to appoint Pamela Augustine-Jefferson as director of early learning programs, Taryn Bonner as labor relations manager, Robert McCain as Barnard Magnet School’s principal, and Derek Stephenson as Riverside Opportunity High School’s principal.

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