Clowns, music and dancing, games, lots of kids, teachers, parents —” even a handful of nuns —” all added up to a fun-filled farewell party for Welch Annex and Prince Street schools. In the fall, both student bodies will be consolidated into the brand-new John C. Daniels Dual Language School (named for New Haven’s first African-American mayor) on Congress Avenue, a few blocks away.
Did the party Friday promote higher scores on standardized tests? Probably not. But it promoted something at least as important, said many of those present —” a sense of community.
Maria Arbelo, a special education teacher at both Prince and Welch Annex for the past eight years, got into the spirit of the day as she handed out candy to kids who wandered down the closed-off streets in front of the schools, taking part in the festivities. After touring Daniels with other faculty members, she said, “The new school is like heaven.”
Sisters Mary Paul, Stephanie and Nancy of the Sisters of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus taught for years at St. Anthony’s School, around the corner, which was run by their order. And back in the 1940s, when the Welch Annex School was a Catholic orphanage, Sr. Mary Paul said, “I would take turns helping out with the babies.” The nuns said the orphanage was closed in 1961; then the building (which is about 100 years old) served as an infirmary for the nuns for five years, and was converted to a school after that.
Luba Dubro taught English as a second language twice at Welch Annex —” once in the mid-1970s and again from 2000 – 2003, when she retired. She said the main thing that had changed was the real estate surrounding the schools. Thirty years ago, the original Prince Street School and Lee High School were neighbors; now the former is a doctor’s building, the latter is the home of the Yale School of Nursing, and an empty lot across the street that served as the playground is now a parking lot.
Helmut Ernstberger, who’s from Germany, and his wife, who’s from Chile, send their daughters to bi-lingual Welch Annex. “This school was perfect for us,” he said (pictured with his daughter Alicia).
Henry Veloza (pictured with two of his students, Solimar and Aida) has worked as a teacher’s aide at Welch Annex for three years. He’s finishing college and hopes to work as a teacher in the new school. “I think we work great together as a community,” he said of the parents, teachers and students. “[Principal] Gina Wells has taken us all under her wing. I don’t know what other school is having a party like this.” Veloza is committed to the kids at his school. He spent a good part of his February school vacation teaching in a CMT Camp that Wells organized to boost kids’ confidence before the Connecticut Mastery Test last March. So Welch Annex (where this reporter volunteered for three years in a bilingual first grade class) works on testing skills and building community.
Maybe I am mis-reading the tone of the story, but this article seems to imply that somehow "standardized testing" is not such a good thing and that "community" is good.
An indisputable strength of New Haven, is that it has a bonanza of all things "community". We seemingly have more different communities, defined by groupings like geography, ethnicity, wealth, sexual preference, occupation, than we have residents! There are 30 different political wards to show for it and probably twice as many offical neighborhoods. New Haven has plenty of community and communities!
What New Haven doesn't have is an adequately educated population of adults and school children. Schools are certainly a primary institution in a community and can help influence culture. But their first obligation is to equip children with the basic language of modern human life - how to read, write, and use math skills. These are tools that everyone needs to navigate life successfully. Principal Gina Wells seems to have embraced this mission with her CMT camp project.
Using a well-designed, objective system of evaulation (Testing) as to whether a child has learned how to master the basics (THE BASICS!) of reading, writing, and computing, is, well, basic.
In many situations testing can be administered inappropriately or over-emphasized. But testing, in a fundamental way, is a way for good teachers to save time. If a teacher receives useful periodic feedback through data derived from tests or assessments, isn't that helpful to them to guide their instruction? If students are pretty much mastering a particular skill, wouldn't a teacher want to know it so they can move on to teach other skills and subjects? Similarly, if too many of the kids are just not getting a particular part of the curriculum, wouldn't a teacher want to know that so they could correct course and make sure that they circled back and re-taught it? If assessments are only conducted every year, or worse, every two years, how do teachers know what the students have been learning or not learning?
Testing isn't everything. Of course it's not. But basic skills can be assessed. Advanced skills can be tested as well. Those tests are called the SATs, and still are a vital part of admission to a good college.
Why do college educated folks, who themselves did well in school and went through the gauntlet of testing, constantly attack testing as somehow nefarious? When was the last time that a kid got into a good 4 year college based on their sense of community?