Mayor Elicker calls for the district to provide monthly building-by-building facilities updates to the school board.
The private contractor that has been managing the city school district’s facilities since 2022 is set to end its work with New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) at the end of the month — as the district continues to address emergency facilities problems and tries to bring on more in-house custodial, trades, and facilities managers.
That’s the latest with the upcoming departure of ABM Industry Groups LLC from managing NHPS facilities.
In May, the Board of Education approved a short-term transitional contract with ABM as the district embarked on building up its in-house team. The contract began on July 1, ends on Sept. 30, and cost $116,000.
NHPS Supt. Madeline Negrón gave the school board an update last Monday about the district’s transition away from relying on private contractors and towards building back up the district’s facilities department.
She also noted that Dennis Tondalo, who had recently been hired as NHPS’ new facilities manager, had reversed his offer acceptance and returned to his previous role as building manager at Conte West Hill School.
“Please know that an offer has already been extended to another top candidate from our interview pool,” Negrón said, while adding that the district is now waiting on a response to its new offer.
“These are all civil service positions so there’s a whole assessment that happens on the city side and we receive the list of top candidates. Those are the pool of people that we have to interview from,” she added.
Since Tondalo‘s departure, and while the district waits on responses, Negrón said the district’s facilities operations work is being led by Chief of School Operations (CSO) Paul Whyte.
Negrón also said that the district has selected a custodial day supervisor that is in the pre-employment process. After this. the superintendent’s recommendation will be put forward for the board to consider the hire.
A candidate has also been identified for the district’s night shift supervisor. Negrón said an offer will be made this week to the selected individual.
Five recently vacated itinerant maintenance floater workers have also been hired according, to the board’s personnel report for Monday’s meeting. Those staffers must complete a 90-day probationary period, according to their contract, before they can bid to take on an open assistant manager position.
An additional ten floaters received offers to join the maintenance team and are going through the pre-employment process before a recommendation is submitted to the board.
Next, the district will seek to hire two carpenters and two plumbers. The hiring process for these positions goes through the city’s Civil Service Commission. Once a civil service test is administered through the city, the district is then able to make its selections after receiving the city’s top candidates.
“We Have To Do Better In Communicating Around What We Are Doing”
Also during Monday’s board meeting, five community members spoke up during public comment about concerns with the state of the district’s facilities.
Those speakers, many of whom recently joined a Hillhouse rally/building walkthrough, said that privatization of facilities management over the decades has negatively impacted the district. They demanded that the district urgently address building conditions that affect the health and learning of students and staff.
The teachers union president, Leslie Blatteau, also provided an update that as of Monday, the union had filed over 30 grievances so far this school year regarding building safety and health.
Negrón also shared updates on a few other facilities-related matters.
At Hillhouse High School, the district was awarded a $6.8 million state grant to cover an $8.8 million roof replacement. The district is beginning the process of seeking a contractor and expects to select a contractor for the project by the end of 2026. The work should then start in the winter.
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