by Mona Mahadevan The New Haven independent
New Haven Federation of Teachers President Leslie Blatteau helps a first grader with his math puzzle.
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten stopped by Truman School Thursday to dance and sing with Ms. Gomez’s fifth graders during a bilingual game of musical chairs — and to promote wraparound services and Career and Technical Education (CTE), while opposing the Trump administration’s education-focused budget cuts.
Weingarten visited the 114 Truman St. elementary school alongside New Haven Teachers Union President Leslie Blatteau, AFT Connecticut President and state Sen. Jan Hochadel, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Supt. Madeline Negron, and Truman School Principal Aurea Evelyn Jaca.
This isn’t the first time the long-time national teachers union president has come to New Haven to learn how the city’s classrooms work and to take lessons from the Elm City across the country. Click here, here, and here to read about previous visits.
On Thursday, when the music in Loles Gomez’s classroom — a song called “Crucero Del Exito, or Cruise of Success” — stopped, the student left standing fished a folded slip of paper out of a hat. Printed on it was an English phrase: “Classical music is boring.” After she read that out, her classmates responded with English expressions of agreement or disagreement, like “No doubt” or “I’m not so sure about that.”
“I see a lot of bilingual classrooms across the country, but this is a lot of fun,” Weingarten said.
On the NHPS website, Truman states that it offers “one of the largest bilingual programs in the district.” According to the state Office of Legislative Research, bilingual education serves students who “have a dominant language other than English” and are not considered “sufficiently proficient in English to assure equal educational opportunity in the regular school program.” In Connecticut, bilingual classes teach academic content in both English and another language.
State law requires public schools to offer bilingual education whenever they have 20 or more students who meet the above criteria.
Research paper upon research paper upon research paper back up the claim that compared to traditional schooling, bilingual education achieves better outcomes for English Language Learners.
For Jaca, part of the “special sauce” of creating a “welcoming” school environment is simply greeting students in English, Spanish, and Pashto. (Throughout the day, this reporter witnessed Jaca speaking to students in both English and Spanish).
Before stopping by Ms. Gomez’s classroom, Weingarten visited the school’s dental office and donation closet, run by a parent volunteer, that gives clothing, hygiene products, and other basic necessities to families in need. After seeing a space for social workers, she praised its separate, private entrance for families using the services.
“Every school, every teacher, every principal — we’re competing with all societal ills,” lamented Weingarten. She commended Truman for offering “wraparound services” to deal with those challenges and declared that “every school should be a school with wraparound services.”
She also said it was good to hear the district-wide mandate for magnetically sealed phone storage devices, Yondr pouches, in all middle and high schools.
“Parents see the value,” said Jaca, adding that only one parent had complained about the policy.
Jason Bedient, a teacher at Truman, said that because “most of our conflicts stem from social media,” going phone-free also made the school safer.
TCB With CTE
Later in the day, Weingarten visited The Sound School in City Point to see its CTE programming. Back in May, she wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times arguing against the school system’s “overly simplistic formula: 4 + 4 — the idea that students need four years of high school and four years of college to succeed in life.”
She said on Thursday that she wrote the piece to fight against the stigma placed on students that opt for vocational pathways.
“Schools need to be safe and welcoming, and curriculum needs to be engaging and relevant. CTE is the perfect example of engaging and relevant,” she said. All students should be exposed to vocational paths, even if they intend to go to college, she argued, “because that is the intersection of what used to be the soft and hard skills.”
She pointed to examples of that intersection succeeding. In Philadelphia two weeks ago, she watched digital media students troubleshoot printers while planning a podcast. At Wilbur Cross High School two years earlier, she saw aspiring medical students practice putting tourniquets on mannequins.
“That is education,” she stressed. “I’m a big, big believer in experiential learning,” which is what she thinks CTE can provide all students, whether or not they end up at a four-year college.
She also pointed out that some students — like a Truman eighth grader who told her that he wants to be a firefighter — already aspire to careers that don’t require college degrees.
She’s also not worried about low-income students or students of color being funneled into vocational paths, even when they want to go to college.
“In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the powers that be…basically decimated vocational schools around the country,” she said. At the time, when she advocated to preserve CTE, she said, “I was told I didn’t care about kids of color,” which she found “offensive.”
“I care about choice,” she said. “You can make these programs really rigorous,” she added, and treat them as legitimate alternatives to college.
Weingarten and Ms. Gomez’s fifth graders sing along to “Crucero Del Exito,” or “Cruise of Success”: a song written for Mr. Gomez’s class.
Ms. Gomez unfurls a piece of paper for her student to read: “Fast food is the best.”
Maribel Valentin, a parent volunteer at the school’s donation closet: “I like to help out where I can.”
“Graffiti does intentionally,” said Weingarten.
“I am so proud to meet you,” said Gloria — a Puerto Rican who’s been in a union since she was 17 — to Weingarten.