Board Actions Center on Honorees, School Designs, New Agreements

The Hartford Board of Education March 22nd commended five schools that have received national honors from the Magnet Schools of America - and then approved the design specs for five more schools as well.  Hartford Magnet Middle School (HMMS) was on both lists.

HMMS and Kinsella School of Performing Arts were named Magnet Schools of Excellence.  Classical Magnet School and the Sports and Medical Sciences Academy were cited as Magnet Schools of Distinction.  University High School received an Honorable Mention.

 
Hartford Magnet Middle School has now become one of four national finalists for School of the Year, the highest honor of this kind in the country, Dr. Steven Adamowski announced.  When she came to work at HMMS, Principal Sally Biggs told the Board, "I told my family I thought I had died and gone to heaven." 

Achieve Hartford!, too, congratulates these schools for the fine work they are doing on behalf of students.

Designs Approved

At the meeting, the Board also approved specs to launch changes at these five campuses:

· Capital Prep - In cooperation with the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, the present 6-12 program will expand this fall by adding grades PreK-5.  A second set of specs, prepared by a broad-based Capital Prep committee for Innovation School design, also received Board approval.  That plan emphasizes greater school autonomy in curriculum, staffing, budget, and schedule, as educators seek to set in place "a sound foundation at the onset of each student's educational journey" at the younger ages. 
· The new Montessori Erdkinder seeks to extend the Montessori philosophy to students aged 12-15 at a farm-based site near Hartford in fall 2013.   
· The PreK-5 Expeditionary Learning Academy at Moylan will be a pathway to the 6-8 expeditionary learning school approved for McDonough.
· Hartford Magnet Middle School will begin expanding this fall from grades 6-8 to encompass a 9-12 academy in partnership with Trinity College: Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy at HMMS.   
· West Middle School, which dates from 1894 and was last renovated in the 1930s, would be updated to as-new condition, with work that would honor its historic status and expand the K-6 school through the eighth grade.  While ultimately dependent upon state funding, the $54.6 million project is designed to respond to the needs of the surrounding Asylum Hill community (see the Hartford Courant story and Mayor Pedro Segarra's discussion of funding).

In other action, Superintendent Adamowski announced the forthcoming appointment of a Weaver High School Design Task Force, led by the Blue Hills Civic Association, to gather in-depth community input about the planned Weaver renovation project.

With a construction grant application targeted for June 2012, the Weaver task force has time it needs to complete its work by October.  This would allow the necessary Board of Education and City Council votes to take place in December and January, respectively. 

The Board also approved a new, five-year "affiliation agreement" with the University of Hartford.  The agreement seeks to formalize cooperative efforts that enhance both the university and school district missions.

Finally, we were pleased that the Board opted to have a different meeting location; additional engagement was evident Tuesday in the form of many new faces.  Hartford needs more willing and interested people to come out and join in - and accommodations to help with that are great.  Few priorities surpass that of increasing our parent and stakeholder involvement in the improvement of schools for children.

Eight Board Members were present for the meeting; only First Vice Chair Pamela Richmond was absent.

Parent Choice is Important for the Entire Family 

When Selenia Velez began to study the school options for her five-year-old son Christian, she got a little overwhelmed - maybe even a lot overwhelmed.

"Christian is the first grandchild," she said, and even though he has been in preschools and library and church classes since he was less than a year old, the entire family is concerned and involved.  Her son speaks English and Spanish, and has strong fine motor skills and an interest in art, she says.  At the same time, he is diagnosed with attention deficit/
 hyperactivity disorder.  "So while he is very smart and can do the things other children do, he has difficulty concentrating," she says.

With all that is at stake, filling out the Hartford schools' choice application to choose the best school for Christian made Selenia very nervous - until she settled in and did research about the schools, learning about their themes and then visiting, talking with other parents, and walking through the buildings.

"This is my baby - and now he's going to school!" she says.  "I found the process overwhelming at first; I didn't want to choose a school that I didn't know, especially since I remember when I was uncomfortable and didn't want to raise my hand in class."

The next time will be easier for the whole family, she says.  Not only will Christian's grandparents have the transportation figured out, but he will be a kindergarten trail blazer.  "He's setting the example for his two-year brother and one-year old sister."

Please contact Achieve Hartford!, or attend our meetings next week if you would like to consult with our staff before the March 31 choice application deadline.

Wouldn't it be great if parents serving on School Governance Councils (SGCs) throughout the city all got to know each other, and also respected the myriad of parents serving on PTOs throughout the city?

 That was the exact intent of a meeting put together by the Hartford Parent Organization Council (HPOC) and the HPS Welcome Center on March 22nd at Kinsella Magnet School for the Performing Arts.  Led by the Hartford Public Schools' SGC Facilitator Carmen Sierra, the meeting featured an informal networking opportunity over dinner and a presentation on Hartford's SGC policy and its implementation.

 
Parents serving on PTOs and SGCs made too many constructive suggestions about SGC policy and its implementation to list here.  They also voiced their concerns about the great variance among schools as to parental engagement, a high priority challenge for our school district and city.

The event exemplified how a direct parent voice can inform school reform in Hartford.  Some 100 parents came forward with an interest in best practices - and added to the core knowledge about increasing parents' engagement.

 
Achieve Hartford! believes in the power of family engagement to improving student achievement, and is inspired to see so many parents in Hartford continually developing themselves and each other.  We look forward to attending similar meetings in the future and to releasing our independent evaluation on school governance councils in Hartford this summer.  To provide us with your SGC insight, please click here.

Hartford Public Schools' Choice Staff Support for Parent Applications, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., Saturday, March 26, at Naylor Elementary School, 639 Franklin Avenue.  For further information, click here.

Hartford Office of Young Children "Youth Employability Day," 12 to 4 p.m., Tuesday, March 29, at Hartford City Hall, 550 Main Street; an opportunity for youth ages 14 to 18 to learn about summer employment opportunities.  Click here for details.

Achieve Hartford! Parent Choice Education Meeting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday, March 29th, at the Village South (OPP) offices, 331 Wethersfield Avenue (to assist parents with the application due March 31).  For more information, or to schedule a meeting at the Achieve Hartford! office, please call 860-244-3333.

Achieve Hartford! Choice Education Meeting from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesday, March 30th, at the Blackwell Memorial AME Zion Church, 680-682 Blue Hills Avenue (to assist parents with the application due March 31).  For more information, or to schedule a meeting at the Achieve Hartford! office, please call 860-244-3333.

School, Family, and Community Engagement Forum, 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, March 26, 2011, at the Farmington Marriott, sponsored by the State Department of Education, in collaboration with the CT Parent Information and Resource Center and featuring Yale Professor Dr. James Comer and Dr. Penny Bender Sebring, Founding Director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago.  Click here to register online.