by Maya McFadden The New Haven independent
HSC teacher Ben Scudder leads rally chants before Monday’s board meeting.
Teachers union Prez Blatteau.
Caley’s down for the cause, too!
More than 200 city teachers rallied for lower class sizes, well-maintained and safe schools, and fully resourced classrooms now that union contract negotiations have begun.
That rally took place Monday afternoon in the King/Robinson School parking lot, right before the latest regular full Board of Education meeting, which was also held at King/Robinson.
Teachers represented by Local 933, the New Haven Federation of Teachers (NHFT), joined with students, parents, the New Haven Immigrants Coalition, retired educators, and neighbors to ask the school board to help “deliver world-class schools.”
NHFT President Leslie Blatteau said in order to deliver world-class schools, educators need a fair contract because “teachers want what students need.”
The union’s current contract is set to expire on June 30, 2026. That deal included a nearly 15 percent pay hike over the term of its three years, and saw starting salaries for new New Haven teachers who have a bachelor’s degree rise to $51,421.
With a megaphone in hand Monday, High School in the Community teacher Ben Scudder chanted, “1,2,3,4,” and the crowd called back, “We won’t take it anymore.” Scudder continued with, “5,6,7,8,” which prompted the response, “Come on board, negotiate.”
Speaker after speaker declared that Monday’s rally for a fair contract is a fight to protect and improve the public schools. While not all attendees signed in Monday, 249 people did.
Scudder listed off the union’s requests for contractual language that will lower class sizes, require school buildings to be safe and well-maintained for staff and students, support fully resourced classrooms, and implement safety protocols for immigrant students.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) spokesperson Justin Harmon told the Independent that the district has no comment on the teacher contract negotiations.
Mayor Justin Elicker, who is also a voting member of the Board of Education and appoints four of the seven fellow voting members, joined Monday’s crowd to listen for several minutes as speakers like Vandy Esposito, who works as a library media specialist at Nathan Hale, described feeling like the school district sees her as expendable
Nathan Hale LMS Vandy Esposito (center): “The city and the district do not feel the commitment toward us teachers or to our students as we do to them.”
Esposito has worked in New Haven for 20 years. She said she was devastated when she and her colleagues were almost on the chopping block last year when the superintendent considered plans to cut all district librarians. Her husband is also an educator and her daughter is an NHPS graduate who plans to come back and work in New Haven after college. “We took it very hard,” she said. “It made it very clear to me and to those others in my position that the city and the district do not feel the commitment toward us teachers or to our students as we do to them.”
She added that when the school district hosted a gathering at Lighthouse Park for teachers to kick off the start of the school year, it should have first considered what teachers preferred to spend their time doing instead. “The vast majority of people voted that we wanted to be in our classrooms” instead of going to a kickoff event at 9 in the morning, she said.
Several community members brought complaints to the Board of Education about how money should have gone toward classrooms and school buildings rather than towards the Lighthouse Park event. The superintendent later clarified that NHPS did not spend any of its funding on the back-to-school teacher event, and that it was funded through community partners.
In response to Monday’s rally, Elicker told the Independent that he agrees that teachers should be paid more, class sizes should be smaller, and buildings should be maintained. “We really want our salaries to be higher for all New Haven public school employees, it’s the same for paraprofessionals. The question is, how do we pay for it?”
He recalled last year’s work done by city leaders, unions, and the school communities to push the state to increase public school funding. He also spoke about the city’s allocation of funding to NHPS increasing by over 50 percent over the past five years. “We need to continue to work on the state and Yale University to contribute more to the city. Ultimately, taxes are quite high in New Haven, and these are about hard decisions. We’d love to pay people more, but it’s hard to.”
Educators and Mayor Elicker listen to speakers at Monday’s rally.
He concluded that the school board cares about each of the goals set forth by the union but noted that they all take funding, with the exception of the request for contractual language immigrant students. “It takes more funding to have smaller classrooms. I don’t just see that as mayor, I see that as a parent of two daughters that go to New Haven public schools.”
Blatteau set the scene Monday that not only are educators having to rally for a fair contract while grades are due and after working all day long in classrooms and in meetings, but also while “working people are under attack by an authoritarian federal government.”
Since January, Blatteau said, the union has been identifying members’ problems that impact the schools in order to present solutions during the negotiation process. She said problems arose over the summer with educator salaries that “lessened” because of increased insurance costs. She said dozens of educators reported receiving less this year than they did last year because of insurance increases that the city or union cannot control. “We are sick and tired of doing a job that costs us money. We are buying our own supplies, we have to get master’s degrees, and now our insurance costs so much it takes away our raise,” she said.
The solution, Blatteau said, is the Connecticut Partnership Plan. “We are worth it. We are very excited to continue to work at the negotiating table to secure this and get a quick TA [tentative agreement] tomorrow and lock it in that New Haven is going for the state partnership plan so that teachers can feel the respect and feel the security and not feel like, ‘Oh my God, am I going to get a raise?’” she said.
Other speakers at Monday’s rally called for the district to make a publicly available transparent school budget that is collaboratively created. They also called for fully staffed school buildings and competitive wages.
Gillian Lynch, a 14-year teaching veteran who teaches music at Nathan Hale, said she is tired of being told as an educator, “do it for the kids,” while also trying to make enough money to support her family. She called for educators to receive hazard pay to keep building maintenance addressed with urgency, bereavement time, stipends for after hours work, caseload caps, and more planning time.
She added that cost-free proposals like unencumbered time at the start of the year to prepare for students and scheduled collaborative time, academic freedom to supplement curriculums, and language in contracts that protect LGBTQ and immigrant students.
“What is the message to the Board of Education? We need you to do it for the kids,” she said.
HSC students Justin Welch, Japhet Gonzales, Diana Robles, and Leo Moore.
High School in the Community seniors Diana Robles, Japhet Gonzales, Justin Welch and sophomore Leo Moore agreed on Monday that they constantly see their educators fight for them and so they too want to fight for teachers to get a fair contract.
“Teachers are critical for this country,” Welch said. “It’s the building blocks for someone to become an adult. And if teachers don’t have the proper resources, then students themselves can’t grow to be the person they can be.”
Robles concluded, “We’re here because we want to be. A lot of people get that confused and think we’re here because our teachers force us to be here or because we get influenced by them. No, we are just simply educated and knowledgeable about what’s going on and that’s why we’re showing up because we truly care.”
Educators pick up posters and sign up to mobilize for negation season.