Reform 2.0 Tackles Transience, Emotional Needs

New Haven’s superintendent unveiled plans for school reform’s next phase — offering individualized orientation programs for transient students, getting two-thirds of students on a career or college track, and building more ​“wraparound” services.

At this week’s Board of Education meeting at John S. Martinez School, the superintendent, Garth Harries (second from right in photo), presented a detailed outline of the major initiatives in development or underway to continue the district’s ​“school change” campaign, which started five years ago.

Harries’ report included continued efforts to improve individual schools such as targeted turnarounds, planned efforts to expand pre‑K pending state resources, and new initiatives like redesigning the Homebound program to address students’ emotional and academic needs and promote ​“restorative justice.”

(Click here to see the Jan. 26 version of the report.)

Board members at Monday night’s meeting discussed the benchmarks, whether they were attainable and how they planned to reach them.

“We should not shy away from the successes we have seen since 2009,” Harries said. Graduation and college attendance rate are up, as well as rates of community satisfaction with their schools, he said. The district now serves about 21,000 children, an increase of 1,700 since 2009.

Currently, about 36 percent of students attend college after high school, up 4 percent in the last two years, according to the report. The district seeks to increase that number to two-thirds of students either in college or in the military or an apprenticeship.

Mayor Toni Harp asked whether the district had calculated the number of students in military or an apprenticeship, in order to properly measure the gap.

“Right now, we don’t have all the stats for the military or for apprenticeships,” Harries said.

Board members discussed ways to better include older students, including those in adult education, in the discussion on school reform. ​“Sometimes we forget about how adult ed helps students succeed in life,” Harp said.

Board member Alicia Caraballo said disengaged middle-school students should have a chance to build technical skills. They may find a new appreciation for academic material or a new potential career — offering them another model of success.

Harp suggested the district ​“deepen” its relationship with Gateway Community College and expand student usage of its machinery and equipment.

The board’s Teaching and Learning Committee has, in the past, discussed the role transience plays in disrupting neighborhood schools—influxes of students after October 1 result in higher rates of disciplinary actions and lower academic performance. Schools with stable populations often do better. (Click here for a story detailing the transience problem.)

Harries said transient students should be distributed ​“equitably” to all district schools. He called that goal challenging to carry out because schools doing well often ​“stay full” and don’t have room for new students. He suggested a ​“mandatory and individualized district orientation program for students who arrive in the middle of the year,” to prepare them for their new schools.

“The Board of Education has got to get a policy for when you cannot move a child out of a school…after this date, they can’t pull their child out unless a committee or the superintendent approves,” Harp said. ​“Some parents school-shop throughout the year.”

Board member Che Dawson added that the district should also focus on the individual students who are switching schools.

“Did those students have issues before they were transient?” he said. If so, those problems are just jumping from school to school without being addressed directly.

Harries said that some students come to the district from other states or countries, not just other schools within the district. ​“These are the students we would have to have appropriate strategies for,” he said. ​“We still have to ask, ​‘What is happening in that student’s life?’”