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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Monday night’s meeting was held in Ross Woodward Magnet School New Haven, and also on a Zoom webinar. The meeting covered the needs of the district’s schools, from methods of improving students’ learning, to fostering inclusivity and community engagement through educational activities, such as a recent local math competition. The student Board of Education representatives also presented their reports, which highlighted a call for facility upgrades.

The student Board representatives, John Carlos Musser and Harmony Cruz-Bustamante, who both attend Wilbur Cross High School, delivered a report to the Board detailing the state of school facilities that are in need of improvement. They argued in favor of Negrón’s proposed budget, and emphasized the importance of maintaining learning environments over fiscal constraints.

“We acknowledge it is very difficult to manage the expenses of a city like New Haven, but students shouldn’t be on the platter,” Cruz-Bustamante said.

Musser then detailed conversations he has had with students regarding the lack of accessible restrooms in their schools. He reported that one of the schools had only one boys’ bathroom available in the entire school, and in another case, only one bathroom accessible that was located in the school office for the entire school to use. 

“I find [this] really ridiculous. It really shows the desperate situation that our schools are in for clean and functional facilities, and it cuts a lot into the education as well” Musser said.

Musser added that such conditions both hinder students’ comfort and cut into valuable learning time, fostering an environment of frustration rather than education.

Board response and initiatives

Board Vice President Matt Wilcox noted that discussion and advocacy for better restrooms had already begun within the Board’s finance and communications committee. Wilcox committed to prioritizing the issue, indicating a readiness to seek necessary funding and address the restroom crisis. 

“It is a priority of the students from what we heard [at the committee meetings]. It is a priority of the staff,” Wilcox said. “We need to get at the reasons for the issues there and figure out ways to solve them, and if it is a lack of funding, then we are going to need to find the funds to do it. It is a basic, basic thing.”

Following Wilcox’s comment, board member Edward Joyner suggested the formation of a “School Beautification Committee,” involving students in the upkeep and maintenance of their schools. This initiative, he discussed, would also aim to combat vandalism, a significant contributor to the deterioration of school facilities.

In response to Joyner’s suggestion, Cruz-Bustamante noted that vandalism was also a common topic that was brought up in the council meeting. They discussed the importance of a balanced approach that goes beyond punitive measures regarding the response to vandalism in New Haven schools.

Rather than seeking traditional punishments for vandalism, Cruz-Bustamante explained how the student representatives are working on pursuing holistic strategies that involve the entire school community in fostering a respectful and unified environment.

“It is a tough discussion because there are a couple of students who are like, ‘Let’s just expel and suspend them,’ which we are hesitant about, because that is an easy answer, and it hasn’t deterred anyone so far,” Cruz-Bustamante said.

The suggested solutions Cruz-Bustamante spoke about included collaborations with students and teachers toward restorative justice programs, and collaborating with psychiatrists from Yale University to create an extensive program focused on transformative and restorative justice.

There are 57 schools and programs in New Haven, serving 19,150 students.

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So far, not including numbers from January, February or March, the program has diverted 4,225 pounds, Michelle Martinelli, the Energy and Sustainability Manager for NHPS, told the News.

The pilot program started in September at New Haven Academy and Barnard Environmental Science & Technology School, in November at High School in the Community, and in December at John S. Martinez School. 

The composting program began when NHPS Chief Operating Officer Thomas Lamb tasked Martinelli with creating a unified, district-wide composting program, rather than having individual schools facilitate their own composting policies. 

Individual schools have previously had composting programs, such as partnerships with Peels and Wheels, but this is the first implementation of a unified district policy. Meanwhile, advocates with the New Haven Climate Movement have pushed for expanded composting in schools to the Board of Education.

When Blue Earth Compost, a food scrap collection service for the Northeast region, asked Martinelli if NHPS would be interested in an 18-month pilot, Martinelli “jumped at the chance,” she said.

Each week, Blue Earth Compost provides the schools with large bins for food scraps and collects the bins at the end of the week. Students are encouraged to complete the separation of food scraps from trash on their own. Blue Earth sells the compost on its website.

“At New Haven Academy, I believe they’re filling up two large bins every day,” Martinelli said. 

When it comes to the educational aspect of the pilot, Farm2X, a company that works with schools on farm-to-table programming, is instructing teachers how to oversee the composting process. Farm2X also facilitates student involvement in the composting programs by encouraging students to play an active role in making sure they’re composting their own food waste. 

According to Samuel King, the Chief Financial Officer of Blue Earth Compost, the pilot is being funded by a grant from ReFED — a national nonprofit working to end food loss and waste. 

“New Haven joins about ten other schools throughout the state that are also doing this grant, but New Haven is our biggest school district that we’re working with and has the most schools that we’re working with,” King told the News. 

While the composting process seems simple, according to King, it does not run as smoothly as one may think. He said it takes a lot of “hand-holding” for schools to understand how to run the composting programs with complete student and administrator participation. 

Blue Earth also partners with Haven’s Harvest and Food Rescue US to provide food scraps to those who may want or need them before they get turned into compost. 

“Our hope is that in the coming years that we will be running these kinds of programs in all the schools in New Haven. Last year, a proposal was submitted to the school district for what that could look like, and Michelle Martinelli has been a pretty darn good advocate for it,” King said. “So we feel pretty confident that something will happen.” 

As an advocate of the composting program, Martinelli has spoken to students in environmental clubs at schools across New Haven. 

Rosie Hampson, a senior at Wilbur Cross High School and activist with the New Haven Climate Movement, told the News that Martinelli came to speak to her environmental club about composting and recycling programs. 

“She really highlighted a lot of the benefits of the initiative,” Hampson said. 

Blue Earth Compost was started in 2013.

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According to the Connecticut Department of Public Health, the law intends to address period poverty, as some students may struggle to purchase period products due to lack of household income. However, despite the legislative mandate, many New Haven Public Schools still do not offer free menstrual products for their students.

“Our initial reaction to the lack of implementation was to emphasize advocacy for the importance of this policy; however, after we began discussing with individual districts, we realized that the rollout timeline of the policy had been pushed back,” said Rhea McTiernan Huge ’27, a New Haven resident and a YaleBleeds member working closely with New Haven Public Schools and the Board of Education.

The policy was originally designed to mandate compliance by Sept. 1, 2023. However, as a result of the slow and costly adoption of this updated policy, the date was recently extended to allow schools more time to adjust. Connecticut schools now have until Sept. 1, 2024 to provide free menstrual products for their students. 

The extended timeline means that NHPS is not delinquent as a result of its widespread lack of implementation to date. Rather, YaleBleeds members said that local schools are struggling to comply because they lack adequate funding to do so. 

“Funding and logistics have proven to be the main issues,” McTiernan Huge said. “The state of Connecticut passed the law but proceeded to give no funding to local school boards. Our schools are already underfunded, so it’s a big ask for the state to add this to the docket.”

The legislation provides no explicit mention of funding. 

Following the passage of the legislation, the Connecticut Department of Public Health released a report to guide schools through the implementation process. The report does not mention any sources of funding for schools to draw from, although it does provide some guidance on the quantity of products that schools should purchase.

“As an organization, we want to get involved politically to search for adequate funding, potentially reaching out to the New Haven city council or campaigning a fundraiser,” Jessica Yu ’26 said. “Puberty is a hard time for students; it’s hard to feel that you have no control over your body, especially for children, and having access to the appropriate resources and support is important to build healthier relationships with our bodies.”

According to McTiernan Huge and Yu, YaleBleeds first planned to advocate for a policy requiring free menstrual products in local schools, and only after investigating the state legislative record and “government-adjacent websites” did they find that such a policy already existed. 

McTiernan Huge clarified that the New Haven Board of Education was aware of Public Act No. 23-160; however, because of its extended implementation deadline, NHPS was yet to be made aware of the new regulation. 

Although McTiernan Huge and Yu were unable to identify the exact reason for why the legislative rollout date of this policy was pushed back, they both commented that the New Haven Board of Education remains committed to its timely and effective implementation. 

Both students said they never felt as though the legislation was intentionally neglected, and said that they hope that increased visibility of period poverty and menstrual equity issues will expedite the implementation process. 

“From the various conversations and meetings I have been a part of, I think district staff are supportive, understand the issue, and are working on the logistical issues connected to rolling this out to all 41 schools,” Matt Wilcox, the vice president of the New Haven Board of Education, wrote.

Wilcox also added that this issue is being handled centrally with a “district-wide” approach, not at the school level.

To conclude, Wilcox mentioned that the New Haven Board of Education will present a “restroom report” at an upcoming Finance and Operations meeting, where he will request that the topic of period poverty and free menstrual products be included to get more information about the rollout plans.
Yale Bleeds — formerly known as PERIOD@Yale — was formed in 2018.

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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 program will run daily on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. from June 24 to Aug. 2, and Yale undergraduates will have the opportunity to design their own curriculum about a topic of interest to teach the students. The program costs $75 to attend, although the U.S. Grant Foundation offers full scholarships for students. The program unites students from schools across the city to offer them an enriching opportunity to learn and take part in other activities.

“The program’s mission [is] to set kids up for a successful school experience, but really more so to have a positive and powerful experience over the summer that can serve as a touchstone for many years to come,” said Sam Purdy ’10, a member of the board of directors for the Ulysses S. Grant Foundation.

Purdy added that the program also aims to provide academic enrichment and social connections between middle school students and between the students and the instructors, which is especially important, since middle school is a pivotal time for learning and growth.

Each student in the program takes a humanities class, an investigations class and an elective of their choice. Classes offered in previous years were about topics such as psychology, astronomy and climate change, all of which were designed by Yale undergraduates based on their interests.

Last summer, Lyn Rodriguez ’26, one of the co-directors of the program this year, taught a class on Aztec history. 

“[It was] very niche and teaching it to sixth graders is definitely a challenge, but it was fun for them,” Rodriguez said.

As a former student of the program, Rodriguez felt like this was one of the bridges that connected Yale to New Haven and has very low barriers for entry. She was also able to make friends from different schools in New Haven who she saw again at other programs over the years. 

Teaching through the program has been a very rewarding, full-circle experience for Rodriguez. She pointed out that she and her co-workers developed a deep, emotional connection with the students they taught. 

Purdy, who was also a teacher for the program in his undergraduate years, said that his time was very transformative and set him on the path for his future.

“It just felt like this experience opened me up to forming such powerful relationships with kids and families and not to mention fellow teachers. Ever since then, my only work has been in education,” Purdy said.

Outside of classes, the program also offers other activities that expose students to different parts of New Haven, such as City Hall, where students were hosted by Mayor Justin Elicker one summer.

In the past several years, the program has connected students to Yale resources like brain research labs and the Yale New-Haven Hospital. The program also invites student groups like Sabrosura, a Latin dance team, to perform for the students.

Rodriguez agreed with this sentiment, saying that the program opens up students to the idea of what a university looks and feels like.

Klara Oppenheimer, a student who has participated in the program for three years, thoroughly enjoyed her experience virtually and in-person. 

“Something that I really like about [the program] is the way that I can and do apply the things I learn at US Grant throughout the school year. We’ll start a topic in class, and I’ll think ‘Oh! I know this from US Grant!’” Oppenheimer wrote.

Oppenheimer took classes through Zoom in her first year in the program, and her class of children’s media connected her with the teacher made her really want to continue with the program for the following year. 

She was first nervous about attending the program in-person in her second year after her fun experience the previous summer, but she said that her in-person experience exceeded the virtual one of the previous year.

“You don’t even notice the time passing between the day that everyone is quiet and shy, and the day that everyone is laughing and yelling and feeling like family. I’m going to be so disappointed this summer when I age out, but I also feel so fortunate that I have these memories that I’ll keep forever,” Oppenheimer wrote.

The Ulysses S. Grant Foundation is accepting applications for student instructors for summer 2024 until Feb. 23, 2024.

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Cardona and federal and local elected officials spoke at Fair Haven School. The grant was awarded to the Clifford Beers Community Care Center in November. Over the next five years, it will be used to implement a “Full-Service Community Schools” model in two New Haven schools — Fair Haven School and Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration, which are located in the same neighborhood. 

“This grant builds on work that’s already on the way,” Cardona said. “You are building on strong foundations that will continue to transform the system. And systems should be responsive to the community’s needs, not the other way around. That’s why in the Biden administration, we’re proud of pushing to expand full-service community schools to levels never seen before in our country.”

The program in the two schools will be led by the Clifford Beers Community Care Center in partnership with New Haven Public Schools, city departments and several local organizations, including Dwight Hall at Yale. 

The full-service community schools model aims to turn schools into community hubs and bring engagement from parents and local leaders.

“What the Community Schools model does is it creates a framework for doing the work,” Sarah Miller, director of strategy at Clifford Beers and Fair Haven Alder, told the News. “It’s not about any one thing in particular, but creating a more intentional strategy around coordination and collaboration in support of children and families among all of the different partners that are party to that work.” 

At the press conference, Miller said that the organization will not “reinvent anything” but will focus on what is working. She told the News that the grant will be used primarily for staffing. Each school will hire a full-time Community School coordinator who will lead the various programming supported by the grant. 

According to Miller’s press release, the programming will offer school spaces for the community after the school day, bring additional extracurricular activities during and after the school day, provide families with leadership development opportunities and enhance academic support for students.

“We know we don’t have all the answers in D.C.,” Cardona said. “We’re gonna get a community assessment because what worked 30 years ago may not work today. Let’s talk to the community because who knows students better than their parents.”

As of now, there are no further details on what exactly the program will look like. 

In the coming months, the partnering organizations will continue planning and will begin implementing the programming in August 2024 at Fair Haven School and in August 2025 at the Family Academy. 

“I’m really excited about the new projects, and I like how the adults are paying attention to the students and they’re showing that they care for us and they want … the best for us,” Nathalia Marcano, an eighth grader at Fair Haven School, told the News after the press conference. 

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and NHPS Superintendent Madeline Negrón also spoke at the event. 

Fair Haven School has over 700 students, and Family Academy of Multilingual Exploration has over 400 students enrolled. 

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The Board met at the Barack Obama Magnet University School. In the first portion of the meeting, which allowed members of the public to voice concerns, part-time NHPS substitute teacher Abe Benghiat criticized the Board of Education for failing to raise teacher pay in accordance with Connecticut’s 2024 minimum wage increase from $15 per hour to $15.69. 

“I am beyond disappointed to be speaking to you yet again on substitute teacher issues,” Benghiat said to the Board. “The human resources department and the city as a whole has failed one of the most vulnerable employee populations by not raising the wage appropriately or in compliance with the Connecticut State Law.”

After Benghiat called for a reevaluation of the system that allowed this alleged neglect, the meeting continued without comment from Board members. 

Next on the agenda was the passage of proposals made by the Board’s Finance and Operations Committee earlier this month. These agreements included a partnership with a consulting group to ensure that NHPS meets the educational needs of its multilingual students and a decision to allocate a portion of school resources to trauma-informed counseling. 

Funding for professional development training for teachers was also included in agreements passed at the meeting, with an emphasis on how to boost student engagement in the classroom and facilitating a shift to block scheduling. Block scheduling means an increase in the duration of each class from 40-50 minutes to around 90-100 minutes, according to Education Advanced. It would also mean a decrease in the number of times classes meet per week. Board and Committee members hope that this increase will allow space for more independent student exploration of course topics.

“There ought to be a time where students can pursue their own interests within the context of … the course you’re teaching,” Board Member Dr. Edward Joyner said. “The three most important variables in learning are interest, attention and memory.” 

Allowing students more time during each class to pursue both required course material and their own related interests would boost both attention and memory in the classroom, Joyner added. NHPS lead librarian and union member Kim Rogers attended the meeting as a representative of Libraries for All, an organization that believes that each public school in New Haven deserves a librarian. Currently, she told the News, nine schools in the city have no librarians and 14 have just one part-time librarian shared between two schools. She connected this absence to New Haven children’s low reading scores. 

Rogers echoed Joyner’s point about the necessity of increasing student interest in learning, adding that all NHPS teachers have topics or books that they are required to teach. 

“That’s the work of reading and that’s fine,” Rogers said.“Having access to a librarian will allow them to have that interest … That’s the interest and that’s where the joy of reading comes from.”

Rogers also hoped that the agreements passed at the meeting would allow for better support of New Haven’s multilingual students.

“When we talk about serving all of our students, we … as a community, we are a sanctuary city, we are having people come here to be safe, to make a better life, because we find that important,” Rogers said. “But yet we haven’t been able to fully support that in our schools. That’s ’cause our schools are not fully funded.”

Another item on the meeting’s agenda was the development of a new strategic operating plan for NHPS. As described by Dr. Madeline Negrón, this multi-year plan would serve to advance student achievement at New Haven schools, relying on the exchange of ideas between the Board of Education’s subcommittees and the larger NHPS community of teachers, parents and students. While planning is already underway, community data collection will begin over the course of the next few weeks, with members of the public responding to surveys about what they believe needs to be changed within NHPS to further student achievement and development. 

This process will wield the power of artificial intelligence for the collection and analysis of data, as well as to allow anyone, including non-English speakers, to communicate their thoughts on the school system. AI will immediately translate community responses from the language in which they are written to English, making the process more accessible. 

During the meeting, Negrón paused to highlight New Haven’s Hillhouse High School graduate Constance Baker Motley, who had just been placed on the 47th Black Heritage Stamp by the US Postal Service for her contributions to Brown v. Board of Education. 

“Great things have always happened at the New Haven Public Schools,” Negrón said. “That is why I continue to speak about getting us to strive toward the next chapter of excellence.” 

NHPS has a budget of $207 million for the 2023-24 school year.

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On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Harvin led the “YOU Have a Dream” event from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Baptist Church, which introduced Newhallville fREshSTARTs to the neighborhood. The nonprofit is an “all-encompassing mechanism for the whole person” that will include an innovative food pantry, debate and arts education for youth and a financial literacy course for adults, according to Harvin, its founder and president.

“When I was in prison, I had several visions of what Newhallville could be if I offered my hands and heaven offered help,” Harvin, who is a licensed minister, said at the event. “While in my bed in that cell, in my head, I witnessed Bassett [St.] and Dixwell [Ave.] serving as beacons of Black business, akin to the boulevard we’ve given the moniker Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

Harvin received a 14-year sentence in 2016 but was released in May 2022. While in prison, he befriended Babatunde Akinjobi, who was released after 22 years of incarceration in August 2023 and is now the director of community engagement for fREshSTARTs.

Akinjobi and Harvin quickly connected over their shared spirituality and their love for their communities, prompting them to begin brainstorming ideas for a food pantry. 

“Who’s this big-headed dude?” Akinjobi said at Monday’s event, recalling his thoughts the first time he met Harvin. “Every time I saw him, he had a book. But then I noticed that he had a Bible, too.”

During his years in prison, Harvin described feeling like an “anxious dog scratching at the door,” wanting to leave and begin his work on the food pantry. 

Upon his release, he continued his studies at the University of New Haven — which he had begun in 2021 through the joint UNH Prison Education Program and Yale Prison Education Initiative — and was awarded UNH’s President’s Public Service Fellowship. The fellowship provided Harvin with an internship at Neighborhood Housing Services, or NHS, in New Haven during the summer of 2023.

Food distribution features partnership with local college

Adam Rawlings, the community engagement specialist at NHS and the vice president of fREshSTARTs, met Harvin during his internship and began working with him to set his plans in motion. 

“Food can be a tool for building community,” Rawlings told the News. “It’s not only something that an individual needs to have energy to go about their day. It is something that can be an invitation to larger conversations around, ‘what else can we help you with? What’s happened to you where you might need some extra resources?’”

Rawlings’ main responsibilities include coordinating food collection and distribution, as well as organizing volunteers for fREshSTARTs’ youth and adult programming.

He is also focused on finding grants and funding opportunities for the nonprofit, particularly through his work with NHS. In October, Harvin and Rawlings attended the NeighborWorks Community Leadership Institute and received a $4,000 grant to use as seed funding for the food pantry, allowing them to purchase two freezers and pay for an electrician to set them up. 

When asked by the News how he plans to fund several ambitious projects, Harvin said that they were still seeking funding sources through a number of avenues, including individual donors and nonprofits. 

“Hopefully the money starts pouring in,” Harvin told the News. “I believe that provision follows vision, so I believe that those proceeds to make the visions a reality are going to be here soon.”

Derek Faulkner, a university assistant at Southern Connecticut State University’s office of sustainability, reached out to Harvin in December after reading a New Haven Independent article about fREshSTARTs. SCSU is the first university to partner with the nonprofit.

The University’s Food Recovery Network chapter, managed by SCSU junior Chris Kowalski, plans to deliver roughly 80 pounds of excess dining hall food to Pitts Chapel every Monday between 3 and 4 p.m. 

Bishop Darrell L. McClam, the pastor at Pitts Chapel, agreed to host fREshSTARTs’ food pantry at the church, citing a link between food insecurity and faith.

“We can’t even bring people to Christ until we deal with their physical situation,” McClam told the News. “Even He knew that He had to handle their physical body first before He [could] even deal with their mind and in the spirit and soul.” 

Starting on Feb. 2, SCSU’s excess food will be served from 5 to 7 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in Pitts Chapel’s fellowship hall. 

Dubbed the fREshstaurant, this service aims to provide food with “dignity,” rather than adopting a traditional soup kitchen model.

“Soup kitchen has a negative connotation that you’re going to walk down pretty much a human conveyor belt, and people are going to take a silver ladle and slap stuff on a tray,” Harvin told the News. “I know how it is to eat undignified. I was in prison for six years. You get passed food through the same trap [that] you get passed a toilet brush that has been used on the toilet next door. We’re not doing that for people.”

Plans include debate team, financial literacy class, community garden

At Monday’s event, the National Prison Debate League’s Assistant Director Brittany LaMarr introduced the FRESH Debate Program, which will be rolled out in early February. 

The 12-week course will teach students in grades 5-12 oratory skills and allow them to discuss policies that directly impact their community, according to LaMarr.

“We shouldn’t have to go to prison to be able to be given the skills and the tools that you need to be successful in life,” LaMarr, who is also formerly incarcerated, said.

Moreover, the program’s students will receive a stipend that is placed in a college savings account, per LaMarr.

Credit Repair and Money Management, a financial literacy class for adults taught by KeyBank’s Branch Manager Dwayne Hicks, will also begin in February. All courses will be taught in Pitts Chapel’s basement and in NHS’s learning lab, according to Harvin.

McClam said that he was inspired to host fREshSTARTs’ various courses at his church because he grew up with a learning disability.

“[I’ve gone] from a kid who is reading on a third grade level and graduating from high school, to achieve the things that I have done, the places that I have seen, the things that I have started,” he told the News. “Any time I can [spend] to help our community, I have to make our church available.”

In the next few months, Harvin aims to launch fREsh Farm, which will teach farming to neighborhood youth and adults. NHS will provide fREshSTARTs with plots of land for this program, according to Harvin, and Faulkner hopes it could also be held in SCSU’s community garden.

Another future project is the Make Shop, a space where fifth- to eighth-grade students can “exercise their creativity.” Akinjobi will lead the Make Shop.

“A lot of times, these kids are running around with empty hands,” he told the News. “We figured if we put tools in them, they’ll start to explore, as opposed to getting into mischief with whatever else they can pick up.” 

Akinjobi noted that when he was younger, he rejected the guidance of adults in his life because they didn’t have any shared experiences.

But he thinks that he’ll be able to help Newhallville’s youth because of his shared background.

“Where you think you’re going, I’ve been,” he told the News. “I’m going to invest in all of this: myself, time, whatever is necessary to make sure that … somebody cares enough about you to see you become [something] more … You don’t have to be a basketball player, you don’t have to be a rapper, you don’t have to be the neighborhood drug dealer.”

Once the guest speakers’ portion of Monday’s event concluded, Harvin invited attendees to head downstairs to Pitts Chapel’s fellowship hall to discuss the proposed programming over pizza. 

Afterwards, fREshSTARTs’ leaders distributed flip charts, on which attendees were encouraged to jot down anything that they and their community needed to become the “best version” of themselves. Harvin promised that these charts would serve as the inspiration for fREshSTARTs’ future Oasis Center, a building he hopes to construct in the future to host the aforementioned programs and services.

“When we secure the funds to get this project done, to get this building built … I’m going to take that paper, I’m going to give it to an architect and I’m going to say, ‘make this happen,’” he said.

Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Baptist Church is located at 64 Brewster St.

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The Board of Education unanimously passed a district-wide transgender policy for New Haven Public Schools in 2021. The policy is intended to support the district’s transgender and gender non-conforming students and ensure that every student has equal access to all school programs and activities.

Typhanie Jackson, the executive director of student services for NHPS, discussed the progress that has already been made in bringing the policy guidance to reality. She mentioned how the city “unpacked the policy” for the administrators and provided them with a guidance document to support policies and economic proposals.

“We are happy to say that as far as the inclusive spaces are concerned, 82 percent of our high schools have all-gender bathrooms,” Jackson said. She also mentioned the “huge investment” in mental health first aid training to ensure necessary training for all staff, from security professionals to faculty.

As a part of her testimony, Jackson talked about the city establishing focus groups that have a goal of “not dictating what it is in the district that [the administration] feel is important” but also hearing the voices of students, staff and parents to “shape the work and work in partnership.”

Despite the recent progress, Jackson recognized that more work has to be done in the near future. The current hope of the Board of Education is to focus on promoting the visibility of resources already available, providing additional training to the staff at NHPS, and establishing all-gender bathrooms and Gender Student Alliances in all middle schools.

Dave Weinreb, a representative of the LGBTQ+ Youth Task Force, reiterated the necessity of the aforementioned measures to be implemented but also advocated for broader initiatives. His demands included establishing GSAs in all middle schools and increasing LGBTQ+ visibility, which would involve giving LGBTQ+ community representation in the curriculum of all subjects, not only health education.

Erin Michaud, another representative of the LGBTQ+ Youth Task Force, shared her own experience in the educational environment.

“As a queer teacher, I feel invisible in this city. I don’t know how our students feel. Actually, we do know how they feel. They feel invisible. They feel unseen. They feel unheard. They feel unwelcome. Their attendance is poor. They feel sad, and they don’t want to come to school,” Michaud said. 

Resident testimony focuses on the need for GSAs, sex education 

Dozens of attendees, including youth ranging from primary to high school students, students’ parents and educators, joined Michaud in testifying about their experiences before the committee. In testimonies, citizens mentioned incidents of staff members forcibly removing a student from a bathroom due to a presumptive judgment about their gender, administration making students request keys to access all-gender bathrooms and teachers using cisnormative language like “boys and girls” that disregard the identities of non-binary students. 

The importance of training for staff to be provided in schools was brought up on numerous occasions during the event. Ta’LannaMonique Lawson-Dickerson, the director of political education for the Citywide Youth Coalition, emphasized that it’s not only the presence of the training that matters but also its quality.

“Having a straight cis-gendered person do a training about LGBTQ folks might not be the best idea,” Lawson-Dickerson said, highlighting the importance of personal experience for the correct representation of the issues they face.

One of the central actions that attendees called for was the establishment of Gender Student Alliances in all high schools and middle schools.

Alder-elect Caroline Smith ’14 mentioned that GSAs are valuable not only for people who are directly involved in them but also for those who aren’t quite ready to attend the alliances yet. She described her own experience of being in the closet while growing up in Kentucky, where she was not quite ready to be public about her identity. 

“Even just knowing they existed made a difference to me,” Smith said. 

Baz Holmes Poynter, a transgender student, also brought up the importance of early age-appropriate sex education. Poynter mentioned how she is often asked inappropriate questions, such as “Do you have a penis?” 

Poynter said she wants adults to educate younger students that such questions can make others feel very uncomfortable. 

Patti Nicolari, the executive director and founder of PROUD Academy, a private school grades 7-12 for LGBTQIA+ youth, shared her thoughts on the hearing with the News. 

“It is sad that we are in 2023, and we are still covering those conversations,” Nicolari said. She noted the gap between the policies that have existed for years in NHPS and the actual experience of gender non-conforming students in the educational setting. 

NHPS has 44 middle and high schools.

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