Mom Takes Promise Pledge

Claudia Herrera Tuesday night learned about the New Haven public schools’ new Promise program to provide college scholarships to qualifying high school graduates. Now she plans to spread the word in her neighborhood.

She’s just the kind of organizer the program is looking for.

Claudia Herrera (pictured above with her son, eighth grader Jared Cervantes) was one of about 15 parents who showed up at Fair Haven K‑8 school for a presentation in Spanish about the new program, one leg of the city’s ambitious school reform plan.

Adriana Arreola (pictured), student/parent organizer with New Haven Promise, a Community Foundation-run and Yale-funded program, offered basic information to parents at the meeting. She ran down the requirements high school students must meet to qualify for scholarships to public colleges in the state (or a smaller amount to private colleges): maintain at least a B average and a 90 percent attendance rate, have a clean disciplinary record and do 40 hours of community service. She passed out an information sheet, ​“Sobre New Haven Promise” (“About New Haven Promise”), that summarized the program and included a chart showing what percent of benefits a student can receive based on his or her years in the New Haven school system. Those starting in Pre‑K or Kindergarten are eligible for 100 percent of the scholarship funds (up to $8,000 a year to attend UConn); that’s reduced gradually down to 65 percent for someone who joins the system in ninth grade, down to zero for anyone matriculating as a sophomore, junior or senior.

That was important to Herrera. Her son switched from a Catholic school to Worthington Hooker as a seventh-grader and will be eligible for 75 percent payment.

As part of the program, families are asked to take a Promise ​“pledge.”

After a short presentation, Arreola asked for questions. Herrera asked for clarification about the pledge. Arreola explained that the pledge is what incoming ninth graders and their parents sign, acknowledging the requirements to qualify for a scholarship.

“That allows us to enter them into our data base to start being able to track students through their high school years,” she said.

So far, 1,850 students have signed the Promise pledge; 252 seniors have turned in their Promise scholarship application.

Herrera, who lives on Castle Street in Fair Haven, asked a second question: Would Arreola come to a meeting at a neighbor’s home, not an institutional setting to explain the program?

“They [her neighbors] want to come to a home and feel comfortable asking questions,” she said, ​“but not in front of a group of strangers” in a public meeting such as the one at the school. Arreola said she will.

Outreach is key to their efforts, she explained after the meeting. ​“We’re going to be hosting [a meeting] in the Hill neighborhood in March, and then we’ll move throughout the city to better inform parents and students of what the program is, because our main goal is to make sure every parent in New Haven knows what New Haven Promise is.”

After the short meeting adjourned, Herrera spoke with Lynn Smith of Start Community Bank (on left in photo). She said she attended to learn more about the program and what parents’ concerns are and perhaps be able to help them save for their kids’ college educations.

“We want people to understand you don’t need a lot of money to bank,” she said. ​“We have a savings account you can open for five dollars; you earn interest at twenty dollars, and that’s a way to build wealth. We’d love to partner and get kids thinking about saving and investing in themselves.”

“Remember,” she added, even if young people qualify for scholarships, ​“there’s still going to be the cost of books. There’s still going to be the cost of traveling back and forth [to campus]. Tuition and fees are paid for, but there’s a lot of other expenses.”

Most of the attendees had come down from adult education classes being held in another part of the school, like Luz Maria Diaz and Iris Alvarez (pictured, left to right), who each have two children. They had heard something about the Promise, but came for the details.

“It would be a big help,” Diaz said, ​“because we don’t have the income to send our kids to college.”