Melissa Bailey Photo
Staying open all summer. College prep for 3‑year-olds. Sound ambitious? Those are two of the first ideas on tap as New Haven starts reinventing its schools.
Look for those changes at Davis Street and John C. Daniels schools.
They were among seven pilot schools graded and placed into three tiers in March as part of the city’s nascent school reform campaign. That meant they would try new ideas to get better, even though some of the seven schools are already doing well.
Daniels, a bilingual school, was given a middle-performing, second-tier grade; Davis Street, which has championed innovations and closed the achievement gap, was placed into the top tier, granting it more autonomy.
Leadership from the seven pilot schools has been meeting weekly with central office staff to brainstorm improvement plans for the fall.
Davis Street Principal Lola Nathan (pictured with Davis staffer Mary Derwin) and Daniels Principal Gina Wells presented initial plans at the school board’s regular meeting Monday night.
Both K‑8 schools plan to launch summer programs, a college prep program, and increase the amount of time spent on instruction.
Starting in the fall, Wells plans to extend the school day at Daniels by 45 minutes, four days a week. The extra three hours would make time for more math, reading and study skills lessons, she said.
According to the teachers union contract, the Tier I and Tier II improvement plans both need approval by 75 percent of the school’s staff, as well as by the superintendent and union leadership.
The two school improvement plans would come at no additional cost to the district, according to Imma Canelli, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. Schools were instructed to make some cuts to accommodate added programming, she said.
Neither school currently runs a summer program outside of the mandatory one that the district runs for kids who are falling behind. Both plan to jump start learning by rolling out new summer programs in June.
Principal Wells (pictured) said she’s planning a four-week summer program for 100 students in grades K to 5. The Daniels school is bilingual: Students read, write and speak in both Spanish and English. The summer program will focus on preparing incoming 3rd and 5th-graders for the dual language program, especially who didn’t grow up speaking Spanish, she said.
Davis Street is planning a five-week, site-based summer program focusing on grades 2 and 3. It may join forces with the Edgewood School, the other Tier I school.
The extra classes would follow Davis’s trajectory of providing more opportunities for kids who would otherwise be stuck at home doing nothing, said Principal Nathan.
Along that vein, Nathan proposed holding special school sessions during some holidays and breaks — an experiment she tried out in February. A lot of kids spend holidays watching TV at home, and aren’t aware of what the holidays are for, she said. Her student body has 32 cultures. She proposed holding school on holiday breaks to teach students about the meaning behind holidays from different cultures.
At Daniels, Wells plans to extend the school day to seven hours per day. Teachers would stay longer on Mondays for professional development. By using staggered start times, Wells said she has worked out the schedule so that only 14 to 15 teachers would end up working more hours — and thus would be paid more. She said she is asking teachers to come in a couple days a week in the summer, too.
Both schools set a goal of preparing their kids to succeed in college. That’s one of the core goals of the city’s school reform drive.
To that end, Daniels and Davis both plan to implement a program called College Ed for students in grades 7 and 8. The program, published by the College Board, teaches middle schoolers college readiness skills. It includes materials for getting parents involved, too.
Davis Principal Nathan said the program will be part of a wider focus on college readiness that will extend all the way to the 3‑year-olds who start pre-kindergarten classes there.
At Daniels, students in 7th and 8th grades will spend 30 minutes per day on study skills or college prep, Wells said. She also plans to use the new SchoolNet online data system to track how Daniels graduates perform when they get to 9th and 10th grades.
Wells said she’ll devote some of the longer school day to increase time spent on math and reading. Daniels students’ math scores have been “inconsistent,” she said. To deepen the school’s emphasis on “HOTs,” higher-order thinking skills, Wells and a group of staffers will attend a summer training institute paid for by the state Culture and Tourism Board.
At Davis, Nathan looked for creative ways to boost literacy skills, in keeping with the magnet school’s arts theme. One is a pre-existing program called Project Zero. The goal is to teach kids to think critically about art and music. Nathan also plans to have kids put on more plays, and forge new partnerships with city theater and music groups.
At the end of the presentations, both principals were met with a question from board members Mayor John DeStefano and Alex Johnston (pictured, from right) — how will the new programs translate to the “bubble” chart? They were referring to the district’s new way of grading how well schools are closing the achievement gap between city kids and their suburban counterparts.
DeStefano has set the ambitious goal of closing that gap in five years.
Both principals said they have literature to show that the new programs they plan to implement have produced results.
Johnston pointed out that it’s easy to produce literature supporting any education initiative. The district’s task will be to make sure the new programs work for New Haven — and keep students on track to academic success, he said. He suggested the school board serve as a “data team” to ensure the schools stay on track toward the district’s bigger goals — closing the achievement gap, cutting the dropout rate in half, and ensuring all public school kids can succeed in college.
Hate to say it, but all of these new programs will not close the achievement gap between the urban and suburban schools. The only thing that will dilute the difference is a radical reconditioning of urban society. I.E. 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink'. Also, why is there a bilingual school in New Haven? This sounds like an enormous waste of time and money. Now, children can be illiterate in two languages. Pick a language and stick with it, at least until 7th or 8th Grade and then students can have the option of learning another language.