Allan Appel Photo
Lachelle Hall was on the march Thursday with hundreds of other New Haveners trading “excuses” for a second shot at a better life.
Hall (pictured), a woman with a stern visage but impish smile, was one of most enthusiastic paraders Thursday morning in New Haven Adult Education Center‘s second “No Excuses March for Education.”
Hall enrolled in adult ed because at age 36 she was between fast food jobs, was hanging at home and smoking too much weed, and by her own judgment going nowhere fast. Her son had enrolled as well. He graduated this past June. Lachelle remains at the school: With all the one-on-one help she’s receiving in small classes of about 15 people, she’s learning and enjoying and is committed to graduating soon as well, and becoming a corrections officer.
She and hundreds of other current students, graduates, and adult educators from around the state gathered in the big parking lot of Adult Ed’s 560 Ella Grasso Boulevard campus for the kick-off of an awareness-raising event that the school has been planning for nine months.
The group included dozens of partner organizations that provide Adult Ed students child care, social work, and transportation, services many of them could have used help with when they originally dropped out of high school. The “no excuses” signature motto for the march is not to blame the victim, said Veronica Douglas-Givan, the school’s main outreach official. “It’s just to state that if we are here and did it, you can too.”
About one in six New Haveners don’t have a high school diploma and 30 percent can’t read, estimated the school’s principal, Michelle Bonora. That’s why the whole school and adult ed folks from all over Connecticut were on the march, passing out flyers and T‑shirts, and literally beating the drum — make that a lot of drums — for adult ed.
A fire engine and a half dozen motorcycle cops took their places at the vanguard and the contingents of students, along with drum groups from local colleges, formed up near the Boulevard and prepared to cross.
Organizers didn’t have to persuade Hall as she took her place with the tentacle-balloon group just behind the vanguard of drummers.
A New Haven native who was shuttled around as a kid through the foster care system, Hall went to a lot of local schools. She encountered a lot of disruptions and without a lot of follow-through.
Technically she finished through the eleventh grade, she reported. But when she enrolled in adult ed, those credits couldn’t be verified. She has now finished seven and a half credits toward the total of 23 needed to graduate. She’s not givingup.
“I hated math, ” she recalled, “because I just didn’t get it, but this teacher [at adult ed] really breaks it down. If you put your hand up a hundred times, she’s there. There’s more help.”
Escorted by cops, the paraders moved gingerly along the dangerously un-sidewalked northern side of the Boulevard. As it turned north on Columbus, Hall said that one day she just decided she should enroll.
She just woke up one day and decided that how she had been explaining her life to herself no longer made sense. “I just wanted to smoke all day long, working the fast food restaurant, that was OK. Go back to school? No, the white man wants me to do it, so I won’t.”
Hall greeted some friends at West Street and a few more hailed her as we passed the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center on Thursday’s march. “One day I just wanted to better myself. I’m much more ready. It’s just so comfortable here, it makes you want to come,” she said.
I sensed there were other things Hall might tell me, but in her own good time, as she led cheers and performed some dance steps along the route.
Groups of kids were out at Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy cheering on the marchers.
As we crossed Howard Avenue and moved past the Boys and Girls Club building, another group of kids at St. Martin de Porres school waved flaglets that the parade organizers had previously distributed.
Hall greeted friends and friends greeted her. It was clear this parade was a big deal indeed, but also a family affair. Hall said she’d been at the school since six in the morning helping to set up the tables. Now here she was marching and really one of the students embodying the spirit of the parade and the school.
Her son Marquies Jones graduated from adult ed in June and is doing well, she reported. He wants to find a vocational career, maybe starting with specialized trucking license that he is exploring with his uncle’s help.
And what about herself? His mom’s new career goal?
I’d have to wait a few more blocks — Hall tore off to join another group of paraders — before I got an answer.
Hall surprised me when I caught up to her in front of the march as the parade turned on Church Street South and moved past the Tower One elderly complex on the right and Yale research buildings on the left.
“Corrections Officer,” she replied. “Some of the C.O.s treat people like shit, so I want to be one of the good ones.”
Then Hall took one of the megaphones and set off to lead her colleagues in cheers.
“I’m Boss Material”
Ascross MLK Boulevard, Hall was taking a break on the corner, where she had turned in the megaphone for a cigarette. I learned the CO aspiration did not come from any personal experience. Hall has never been in jail, said said. But her brothers and sister. That’s where she got the reports about the different kinds of correction officers one could be.
Hall also had another insight about herself and that career choice. “I’m boss material, people tell me. I look like that,” as well, she reported, with a smile.
When we arrived at the Green, a stage set up along with hundreds of chairs. Music was playing. The diagonals leading from the Bennett Fountain at Church and Chapel to the stage were lined by tables from Southern Connecticut State University, Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven Legal Assistance, along with recruiters from the army and air force. It was a festive atmosphere, full of opportunity.
As Douglas-Givan put it, as Lachelle Hall joined some circles of dancers in front of the stage, “You’re going to school, then your babies are going to school. It’s a party with a purpose.”
Before we parted, an opportunity, or certainly a little networking about Hall’s future career, was already happening.
One of the participants in this statewide parade was Maria Pirro-Simmons, the superintendent of schools of the largest adult ed provider in the state: Department of Correction Unified School District #1.
The district covers 5,000 incarcerated people, students learning in classrooms within the state’s prison system. Pirro-Simmons said she came to march to help fill in the gaps when students leave her classrooms and deal with the many challenges outside prison, including continuing their education. “We’re trying to strengthen some of our connections before they leave,” she said.
Hall told her she wants to be a corrections officer/ Pirro-Simmons gave her her business card. “Call me directly if you have questions,” she said.
Hall thanked her, pocketed the card, and then rejoined the celebration.
For those who only see color, I would like for you to take a good look at the chocolate, vanilla, and caramel women that created and carried out this march for self-determination through education. I am talking about Veronica Douglas, Michelle Bonora, and Toni Walker. They are a blessing to our community.