by MAYA MCFADDEN The new haven independent
Last year, Dave Cruz-Bustamante would occasionally spend four out of six school-day hours sitting in a classroom with no teacher present.
This summer, the rising Wilbur Cross senior has rediscovered their love for learning at a five-week Yale University academic program — even as they’ve become more aware than ever of New Haven’s town-gown divide.
And next year, during their final year as a student representative on the Board of Education, they’re hoping to amplify student voices, rekindle their peers’ engagement with learning, and maybe spark a revolution along the way.
During a recent interview with the Independent, student activist Cruz-Bustamante, 17, who will be entering their final year of high school at Wilbur Cross, reflected on the state of education for New Haven youth and shared their hopes and plans for addressing students’ rising concerns by creating wholesale change in public education and society.
Cruz-Bustamante holds one of the two student representative seats on the Board of Education. At the start of July, Cruz-Bustamante announced they’d be taking a leave from the board in order to pursue a summer academic opportunity.
Cruz-Bustamante is also a founding member of the student group known as the Socialist Scholars Party and is a socialist literacy teacher at CT Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Going into their second and final year on the Board of Education, Cruz-Bustamante so far has been a voice for empowering and informing NHPS’ student body. They’ve also relayed student perspectives to the board by having a finger on the pulse of what local high schoolers think, want, and need, through organized citywide student council meetings and student-led school walkouts.
This summer Cruz-Bustamante was awarded a scholarship which provided him with the free-of-cost opportunity to become a Yale University student. The scholarship covered enrollment for two accelerated Yale courses, housing in the Berkeley College dorms, and daily meals in the school’s dining hall for a five-week summer program.
From July 3 to Aug 3, they have been taking the courses “Education and Empire” and “Race, Gender, and Class Inequities in the US,” which Cruz-Bustamante selected because of their interest in education and activism.