by MAYA MCFADDEN The new haven independent
(Updated) “What do we want? Fully-funded schools! When do we want it? Now!”
Those chants echoed down Mitchell Drive Friday morning as New Haven students, teachers, and paraprofessionals kicked off a day of action to rally support for increased funding for the city’s public schools.
As Wilbur Cross students filed into their East Rock school building at around 7 a.m., they were greeted by a crowd of more than 20 school staffers and fellow students. Those assembled rallied in support of the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) district’s $220 million budget request for next school year.
The Board of Alders is set to take a final vote on next fiscal year’s budget on Tuesday. The amended budget that the Board of Alders Finance Committee endorsed earlier this month preserves Mayor Justin Elicker’s recommendation that the city send the school district $208 million — which is $5 million more than the current fiscal year, but $12 million less than that sought by NHPS and the Board of Education.
Members of the New Haven Federation of Teachers (NHFT), Paraprofessionals union, Connecticut American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME Council 4), and Connecticut for All rallied alongside students and educators to make that plea for a $12 million budget bump Friday morning.
Teachers union Prez Leslie Blatteau: Enough is enough, fund our schools.
The “Day of Action” encouraged school staff to wear black and a green sticker reading “Fund our Schools” to express solidarity for the requested budget increase. NHFT President Leslie Blatteau arranged to make rounds to several schools Friday to encourage others to support the school district’s budget ask.
Blatteau said that over 100 towns in Connecticut have higher per-pupil spending for their students than New Haven.
“The needs of our students are growing more and more complex. We know there are English language learning needs. We know there are mental health needs. We know that facilities of our schools need investment,” Blatteau said.
She added that the city’s funding of the Board of Education has made up a smaller and smaller share of the city’s overall general fund budget as the city’s budget has grown and grown in recent years. She reported that in 2010, the public schools budget made up 37 percent of the entire city budget. According to the mayor’s proposed 2024 – 25 budget, she said, the Board of Ed makes up only 31 percent.
“We say enough is enough. We say fund our schools,” she concluded. “We want the alders to send us and our students a message that they believe in us.”
Update: Mayor Justin Elicker said in a Friday interview that he agrees with the “spirit” of what the morning’s rally was calling for. “The question is: how do we get there?” The best route, he said, is by keeping the budget pressure up on the state. In that vein, he said that the group’s budget analysis is not correct. The numbers they were working off of included both city dollars and state Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant dollars that the city passes along to the school board each year as part of its general fund allocation. It’s the ECS grant dollars from the state that have stagnated, Elicker said, while the city portion of budget dollars sent to the Board of Ed has actually increased from 2010 to now from around 6.7 percent of New Haven’s budget to around 9.7 percent. “We need to focus our attention on the state of Connecticut” to ensure fuller funding for school districts like New Haven’s, he said.
Wilbur Cross staff and students offered a backdrop for the day of action Friday with posters reading messages like “Small classes = better student-teacher relationships,” “dignity for paraeducators” and “fund our future.”
Norma Martinez Hosang, executive director of the group Connecticut For All, requested that Connecticut’s lawmakers make use of billions of dollars sitting in the state reserve to support underfunded districts like New Haven. Those dollars, she said, could provide New Haven students with universal school lunch and child care for all families.
“Just in the last few weeks our neighbors in Massachusetts agreed to use surplus revenue to enhance educational opportunities and invest in infrastructure,” Martinez Hosang said. “We need to do that in Connecticut.”
“We are here to tell the Board of Alders that they must fully fund New haven Public Schools,” Paraprofessional union President Hyclis Williams added Friday. “It is high time for the right action.”
Cross sophomore Maya Harpaz-Levy: “We deserve better.”
Cross senior Harmony Cruz-Bustamante.
Before teachers and students headed out to their first classes of the day, Cross sophomore Maya Harpaz-Levy shared Friday that while Cross is already a place she enjoys because of students and staff, there are glaring issues that should be addressed.
Harpaz-Levy said Cross lacks basic resources that impact its growing number of students on a daily basis.
“We have rotting ceilings, flooding classrooms, and bathrooms that don’t lock. Our school is not equipped to handle the sheer volume of students, making it a hazard,” Harpaz-Levy said. “We deserve better.”
She concluded that students can’t “perform at a higher level when we are in a school that is falling apart. The bathrooms are unusable, the air conditioning and heating are constantly malfunctioning, we are lacking many teachers, and the staff are barely or not paid a living wage.”
Cross senior Harmony Cruz-Bustamante recalled their experience taking two courses at Yale last summer. “For five weeks I was on a scholarship, I was paid, to sleep, study, and eat at Yale,” they said. “I could dedicate myself to each minute of delicious learning because I was safe, I was being fed, and I was being cared for around the people around me who were also being supported. It was strange to me because I was not used to it.”
Cruz-Bustamante described the difference of being in a learning environment where all the lights worked, with brand new TVs and mahogany tables and chairs. “The support and deep scholarship that Yale students enjoy just down the street from Wilbur Cross is something that all New Haven youth deserve,” they concluded.
The group demanded that the alders show the city that they truly care about New Haven students and their education.
Cross guidance counselor Mia Comulada Breuler added that over the years NHPS has seen less funding and more need.
She said at Cross, teachers are now having to share classrooms, which is causing burnout to happen earlier in the school year.
“Our teachers are trying to do the impossible,” Comulada Breuler said.
Comulada Breuler added that educators are funding their own classrooms “because its the only way to make it work.”
“I really plead for the New Haven Board of Alders and the New Haven Board of Education to really keep us alive and keep us thriving because we all deserve it,” she said.
Watch the full press conference here.
At Friday’s rally.