That was the focus of the report given to the Education Committee of the Board of Alders on Wednesday. New Haven Public Schools Superintendent Madeline Negrón, Assistant Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans, Jennifer Tousignat, supervisor of elementary reading and language arts; and Jennifer Sinal-Swingler, supervisor of secondary English language arts, presented the committee with literacy and mathematics screening results, citing an overall growth. 

For literacy, the school system introduced a new universal literacy screening test from the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt company. The HMH growth measure assesses both comprehension and language through a computer test by giving harder or easier stimuli according to student response. The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills tests, known as DIBELS tests, are also used for universal literary screening. For example, in the DIBELS tests, kindergarteners and first-graders were tested on phoneme segmentation fluency to test phonemic fluency — whether they can separate word sounds into letters. While there is overall growth in phoning segmentation and reading fluency in elementary school, Tousignat hopes to have 35 percent of all students make a full year’s growth in half a year.

“This is important because when we have students that are reading below grade level, we want to make sure that we are accelerating them and that they are making more than a year’s worth of growth in a year,” Tousignat said. “If they just stay with a year’s worth of growth every year and they are behind they’re never going to close that achievement gap.” 

Sinal-Swingler agreed, saying that similar tests conducted in secondary schools showed that data is trending in a positive direction. Sinal-Swingler also hopes to see continuous trends of growth. 

Negrón added that she is excited about the new HMH assessment but acknowledges that it has not been implemented for long enough to fully analyze results.

“We’re excited because [the HMH] trend is positive, but this is not the time to release that gas pedal … because we just don’t know,” Negrón said. “It’s a new assessment. We are looking forward to continuing along this progress.”

Negrón wants to continue to monitor this new assessment to help brainstorm strategies for students to improve more quickly. The district is also piloting mCLASS and Amira learning as new universal screeners, both approved by the state.

Redd-Hannans reported that mathematics screenings were carried out in a similar manner by comparing mid-year data with beginning-of-year data. The school system is focusing on stretch growth, which shows the growth a student needs to be at grade-level proficiency, and has seen positive data trends. 

Another topic discussed during the hearing was the work of educators in the future. 

“It has been quite a privilege to see the hard work of the teachers of New Haven and we continue to elevate our thinking by working with our coaching team,” Sinal-Swingler said. “We know that high quality professional development can’t live in isolation of classroom practice.”

Ward 17 Alder Sal Punzo, a former public school teacher and principal, asked if professional development is being looked at in a different way that can give teachers excitement.

Negrón sees educator retention work as the biggest factor of producing positive data trends in these assessments. She said there is a dedicated committee involved in brainstorming retention strategies with a focus on emotional intelligence in administrators and teachers. Negrón and her team have also introduced celebration campaigns, most recently recognizing female teachers on Facebook for Women’s History Month. 

As the district works to diversify the teaching force, Negrón said they are introducing professional training for hiring team members. 

“We know that we all bring bias … but getting the training so that we’re more open in terms of hiring committees so that when you get a person that has this amazing resume, maybe they talk to you like I do with a heavy accent,” Negrón said. “But just because I have a heavy accent doesn’t mean that all of a sudden the panel has a different opinion.”

By the end of the 2026-27 school year, Negrón hopes to see a 15-percent increase in new teachers of color, reflecting the diversity of students, from the current 29.9 percent teachers of color in the district. 

Negrón also mentioned that when she met with Yale University in the summer, she received funding from the NHPS-Yale partnership, which contributes five million dollars to the district annually. She hopes to use the funding to invite educators to work in New Haven schools while also getting their master’s degrees for free at Yale. 

Ward 26 Alder Amy Marx LAW ’00 questioned why there is a lack of educator retention, discussing problematic working conditions. Negrón acknowledged that the large number of students significantly behind grade level and poor school facilities are primary reasons for the retention issues. However, Negrón and her team are focusing on professional learning and fostering a welcoming school environment to counteract them. 

The Education Committee will be meeting next on April 24 at 6 p.m. in City Hall.

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The five-year strategic operating plan was the focus of a meeting of the Education Committee of the Board of Alders on Wednesday. New Haven Public Schools Superintendent Madeline Negrón, Assistant Superintendent Keisha Redd-Hannans and Chief of Staff Michael Finley presented the committee with developments of their new  strategic operation plan, or SOP. The current plan expires on June 30. 

Finley emphasized the importance of a good SOP that has specific priorities and action plans.

“Having a million strategies and a million priorities and not doing any of them … you’re struggling from the start so being intentional is important,” Finley said. “We are being very intentional around what we are doing with our teams so that we have something that is solid that we can really execute, monitor and implement.”

Negrón intends to prioritize literacy and school culture. She is using the ThoughtExchange platform, which allows participants to rate thoughts of others on a scale of one to five, to leverage the New Haven community’s opinions on the school system. This platform — using artificial intelligence — has strong translation capabilities and is able to remove language barriers, a persistent issue in New Haven. The feedback from using this platform thus far has shown that there is a strong emphasis on academic achievement. Negrón and the school system’s executive team are working on a timeline of alternating between testing and feedback and design sprints to continue to create a better strategic operation plan. 

The team working on this SOP consists of 66 members. They are currently analyzing the data from ThoughtExchange. The three questions asked in the ThoughtExchange survey were: “What is working well in NHPS?” “What opportunities exist for improvement in NHPS?” and “What are the most important skills and experiences our students need to get from their education in order to prepare them for success in learning and life?” 

“Equitable opportunities create the foundation necessary for every child to succeed,” Negrón said when explaining the core beliefs behind the SOP. “High expectations and standards are necessary to prepare students for college and careers. Collaboration and partnerships with families and the New Haven community will enhance learning and achievement.”

The team has formed four sub-committees in response to the results: teaching and learning, operations efficiency, family engagement and culture and climate. 

Ward 14 Alder Sarah Miller ’03, a founder of NHPS Advocates, was primarily concerned with how the developing SOP would differ from previous strategic plans. Redd-Hannans said that the office of the superintendent will focus on messaging to get the public excited about new plans. Negrón added that there will be a focus on college and career to ensure that students feel confident in non-academic soft skills when leaving high school. 

“A city cannot thrive if we cannot produce graduates that will later help our city,” Miller said. 

Negrón continued to explain her action steps, saying that equitable school funding was of the highest concern. She specifically focused on summer learning opportunities, reevaluating, in order of decreasing importance, priorities of academic learning, social and emotional support and joy. Her goal is to increase student achievement with limited funds. 

Alder Sal Punzo, who worked in the New Haven public school system as a teacher and principal for 49 years, reiterated that the building leader, or principal, creates the culture inside of a school. His main concern was how this plan could be introduced to public school staff. 

The New Haven Public Schools executive team plans on using the DataWise project from Harvard, which provides online courses for instructors, to introduce and monitor networks of schools and principals. Negrón also stressed the importance of providing professional support to principals and school staff. 

The committee meeting closed with Finley emphasizing that the school system is evolving in the right direction with an emphasis on financial literacy and soft skills. The district is also using Naviance to set students up for career success. 

“We have over 90,000 lives in our hands and if we are not preparing them for when they leave high school with a plan we are not preparing them for them to fulfill that plan,” Negrón told the committee. “I believe to my core that this education allows us to change the future and address problems like poverty.”

The next Education Committee will meet on March 27 at 6 p.m. in City Hall.

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The Myanmar Spring Revolution began when the Tatmadaw, the military of Myanmar led by General Min Aung Hlaing, staged a coup d’etat on Feb. 1, 2021. Waves of organized resistance began with healthcare workers boycotting state-run hospitals. Protestors, consisting mostly of Gen-Zers and civilians, proceeded to stage numerous protests that were initially non-violent. But as the Tatmadaw became violent against civilians, they struck back. The Tatmadaw responded with social media blackouts and mass arrests. After three years of turmoil, protestors are now faced with a new conscription law that forces all men ages 18 to 35 and women ages 18 to 27 to serve at least two years in the military. This new conscription law endangers many civilian leaders and protestors as they are forced to face the reality of becoming human shields against their own people.

Dr. Moe was born and raised in a small village in Myanmar and came to the Ivy League at the invitation of the MacMillan Center and the Council on Southeast Asia Studies. Considering himself as an academic, advocate and activist, Dr. Moe’s studies delve into the intersection of religion and politics in Myanmar and broader Asia. 

 “The aim of this current course is to invite students to explore untold stories, exercise curiosity and discover new interests in Asia, especially the Southeast Asian religion, politics and identity,” Dr. Moe said. 

When he’s not teaching, he speaks at academic universities around the world, joins grassroots anti-coup resistances and meets with some U.S. senators to advocate for aid and awareness of the struggles of the people of Myanmar. In my class, he informs us on the revolution’s causes and its experiences. Dr. Moe has also grounded the class in “lived experiences,” he says,  intersecting politics and religion — rather than the common academic and philosophical perspectives. Many students were unaware of the Myanmar Spring Revolution before taking this class, which I believe is indicative of mainstream media’s lack of recurring coverage on these protests.

“Myanmar news has been replaced by other conflicts,” Dr. Moe told me. “I wish the international community could come together stronger and protect the people of Myanmar … at least they have to reject the coup as the hegemonic and illegitimate government.” 

A couple of students I spoke with also expressed feelings of disbelief about not knowing about the revolution. “Myanmar Diaries” captures the civilians’ lived reality: a young child getting bullied in school because his father works and hasn’t joined the movement; an unconscious protester getting beaten up and dragged by the military. Myanmar’s reality is often buried or nonexistent in Western media outlets, as they fail to cover much of what is actually happening. 

In a hyper-polarized time, Western media creates echo-chambers of duality, placing significance on only one topic at a time. Perhaps this calls for a diversion of attention away from Western media to social media. Social media is an instrumental platform that has the potential to spread information and lived experiences. 

“Myanmar didn’t have access to the internet for a long time because of dictatorship,” Dr. Moe told me. “While Twitter is used by some political elites, many young and old people from all walks of life use Facebook today. Facebook has become a platform for social movement against this military coup.”

It is a platform for media equality that should be widespread. While I was talking with one of my classmates, Hameeda Uloomi ’26, about the role social media plays in this context, we pondered on if social media is an effective enough tool. She thought so, citing Elon Musk giving access to Starlink to all countries as an example to follow.

 It is necessary to approach social media posts with caution. Because social media doesn’t come with a vetting system that is capable of sifting misinformation and disinformation from accurate facts, the truth gets muddled. And when perception changes according to social media posts, strong public opinion has the opportunity to shape politics and voter choice for international diplomatic relations. Truth cannot become the victim. 

As I reflected on this documentary, I began to realize social media’s power in offering first-hand experiences. It is ever important to crowd social media with the lived experiences of protestors, who are living embodiments of the struggle for justice and human rights. We must actively search for these stories. These stories hold power in documentaries, videos, poems and more. It is our role as students attending a prestigious university to be an advocate — whether it be through artwork, circulating Facebook fundraisers and organizational events, sharing coverage on the protests or urging our senators to co-sponsor and support S. res.20, a resolution condemning the Myanmar military coup. In a highly digitized world, we must be prepared to uplift other people’s voices. 

Three years later, Myanmar civilians are still fighting. In Dr. Moe’s words, “I would urge the community of local and global citizens to remember the fallen heroes, resist the coup, and revive our hope for the future of democracy in Myanmar,” Dr. Moe said. “One of the most important things to do in human life is to tell the untold stories of others.”

EMILY KHYM is a first-year in Benjamin Franklin College. Contact her at emily.khym@yale.edu. 

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IRIS, a non-profit organization based in New Haven, has hosted the event annually to raise funds for its mission of supporting refugee resettlement and to raise awareness around the issue of refugee resettlement. IRIS raised $168,547, nearly 130 percent more than their fundraising goal. Starting this year, IRIS changed the name of the event from the “Run for Refugees” to include “All Immigrants.” On average, IRIS serves around 1,200 refugees and immigrants in New Haven. 

“It doesn’t matter what [government] papers you come with, we welcome you and we are going to try to help you as best as we can,” Executive Director of IRIS Maggie Salem said.

Before the race, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker spoke about the vital role immigrants and refugees play in building New Haven’s community. Elicker’s speech was followed by a speech from Rep. Rosa DeLauro.

At the start of DeLauro’s speech, she was interrupted by a group of pro-Palestine protesters who were standing alongside the finish line. Several of the protesters were holding Palestinian flags and calling for a ceasefire in the Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, in which — as of Feb. 11 — Israel has killed over 28,100 Palestinians since Hamas’ surprise attack against Israel on Oct. 7, in which Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel.

“There was a group of people who pulled out loud speakerphones and started protesting about how Representative DeLauro had not acted on the Israel-Hamas War,” Steven Zhang ’25, who was running in the race, told the News. “It lasted for around six to seven minutes … eventually DeLauro ended up not finishing the speech, and the race coordinator signaled the start of the race.”

Before the race, someone or some group distributed flyers with anti-immigrant hate speech along the race course, according to Salem. Wilbur Cross High School track and rugby teams ran along the race course to pick up these flyers before the race started, Salem said. 

She added that Elicker and other participants who arrived early also helped to clean up the roads before the race started. 

“[IRIS] is really a community,” Salem said. “It is being at the hub of many villages in Connecticut and the nation to do something that is humane and right that is important.”

Participants had the option to choose an in-person 5K around the East Rock neighborhood or a virtual one. 

This year, 30 local organizations sponsored runners to participate in the 5k. 

Some residential colleges and Yale organizations – such as the Asian Network –  sponsored runners through a code that would allow runners to run for free.

“I joined the run because it was promoted in the Yale Club Running group chat,” Sophie Price ’25 said. “I was able to get a sponsorship from a residential college. I think it’s a good cause and a way for Yale students to support a New Haven event.”

For next year’s run, IRIS hopes to move more deliberately into the virtual space to reach out nationally, Salem said. 

IRIS has also been supporting Welcome Corps — a nationally recognized organization that supports refugees. Salem and her team are working on expanding IRIS nationally through Welcome Corps and said that they hope to extend the influence of the virtual 5k next year.

“I have been a participant of this race for the last eight years,” Zhang, who is from New Haven, said. “It’s a fun run for a good cause.”

Jake Jayworth won this year’s 5k with a time of 15:12.

Correction, Feb. 13: This article has been corrected to reflect that Jake Jayworth won the 2024 5k.

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Cook 2Go is a newly opened food court that serves foods ranging from bibimbap to acai bowls. They have a small grocery station, grab-and-go home-cooked meals, a ramen station and an eating area. Danny Lee, the owner of Cook 2Go, said that he was inspired by his love for food and his Korean heritage to open the store. Cook 2Go already has two locations in New York City. 

“I’m from South Korea, but I grew up in New Jersey, and I went to school in Buffalo,” Lee said. “After I graduated, I like food … and my dad has a deli in New York City, so I wanted to get into this business.” 

Lee and his team came to New Haven to bring more Korean food options to the city. 

They said that they hope that Cook 2Go can be a place where anyone can come to get home-cooked food, even if they have allergies or other dietary restrictions.

“It’s a great location,” Lee said. “We really liked the area and want to try and serve the community … Everybody is so nice here … We are also looking to place more options in our stores. We are thinking about opening a deli section, [opening an] udon and pho station and expanding on the options.” 

Lee and his team are looking to expand their stores across New Haven. They said they “envision many more places here.” 

In particular, they are planning to eventually open up “a soondubu [tofu stew] place.”

Currently, Cook 2Go offers Korean, as well as American, Japanese and Chinese food. Lee hopes Cook 2Go can be a place for everyone to try Korean food. The menu consists of foods such as sushi, ramen, bulgogi, bibimbap, seaweed soup and soondubu. 

Two Korean students at Yale told the News that Cook 2Go is a second home for eating authentic Korean food. 

“The only place I got Asian food was Hong Kong market, where you can find some Korean food but not much,” Christian Choi ’25 said. “So it warmed my heart when I saw homemade Korean food on the shelves of a store in New Haven.”

Janice Hur ’27 echoed Choi’s statements, telling the News that Cook 2Go has brought something new to New Haven. 

Hur highlighted the Korean lunchbox meals at Cook 2Go for their price and speed. 

“I liked how [Cook 2Go] had lunch boxes,” Janice Hur ’27 said.  “It’s a good addition because there are quick microwaveable Korean homemade lunch box-type meals which I usually have to get at a sit-down restaurant for a more expensive price.” 

Last year, Cook 2Go prepared food for BTS and their production crew during the New Years’ Eve ball drop in NYC.

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