Comments Off One of Hartford’s public schools — Milner — was hastily handed over to be managed by Jumoke Academy, a charter school.
Less than one year later, Milner/Jumoke is seeking a new principal for the preschool-through-eighth grade elementary school.
From the job posting listed yesterday:
Continue reading 'Administrative Turnover at a Turnaround School'»
In tenth grade I dropped out of Physics during the first week. Not the teacher, guidance counselor, nor anyone else in school challenged this decision, which sprang out of frustration with one homework assignment, despite my finding the classes to be accessible and engaging. One’s plans of being an astronaut get thwarted by missing Physics credits.
Even while abstractedly knowing about the gender gap in the sciences, it wasn’t until Laura Huerta Migus spoke at the Connecticut Science Center on Tuesday that I heard another female tell a similar story. While at Texas A&M University, Huerta Migus changed majors after having a discouraging lab experience. Nobody challenged her on this decision or offered any kind of advising or mentoring.
Title IX may have removed structural barriers for women, but a culture persists in which females take themselves out of the running, either as adolescents or while in college. Continue reading 'Celebrating Women in Science Initiative Launched'»
When volunteers spent a few days last year cleaning in and outside of the Burns School in the Frog Hollow neighborhood, some experienced something like culture shock upon seeing that Hartford’s schools do not receive equal maintenance. Despite those efforts, more work is needed.
On April 27th the community is invited to help with various projects at the school from 8am-1pm.
Children have requested that their bathrooms be more kid-friendly, so adding stencils to the walls will be one of these projects. The cafeteria needs painting. One wall of it will be covered in special chalkboard paint. Bulletin boards will also need refreshing. Outside, there is work to do in the garden, along with routine removal of litter and overgrown vegetation.
There’s no need to rsvp — just show up. Burns is on the block between Russ, Putnam, Mortson, and Park Terrace.
If you can’t wait that long to get your hands dirty, there are other community building (and cleaning) events planned. Continue reading 'Hands-on Community Building'»
Updated at 4:15pm on February 13, 2013: The Hartford Public Schools are scheduled to re-open tomorrow, February 14th, with a one-hour delay.
Parents, you can all rejoice.
Updated at 6:30 pm on February 12, 2013: Mayor Segarra says, “We have approximately 550 streets and 500 curbside miles in Hartford and as of right now they are all passable, meaning emergency vehicles and cars can get in and out.”
The parking ban will be lifted at noon on February 13th for downtown. Vehicles were already parking illegally on Main Street this afternoon. [Note: The Courant is reported a different time for the parking ban lift. The time reported on Real Hartford is coming straight from a City of Hartford press release]
In a press release from the City of Hartford, it is stated that the parking ban will be lifted in the neighborhoods at midnight on February 13, 2013.
Vehicles parked in school lots need to be moved before 6a.m. on February 14th, as it is expected that the Hartford Public Schools will reopen on Thursday.
The Emergency Operations Center is slated to close at noon tomorrow.
Updated at 4:40pm on February 12, 2013:
All of Hartford Public Schools will be closed again tomorrow, Wednesday, February 13, 2013.
The Hartford Public Schools have had to contend with a series of concerns complicated by the slow snow removal from sidewalks and streets. Besides checking the structural safety of roofs, it’s been necessary to ensure that children can safely access bus stops. Anyone who has walked around Hartford since the storm can attest to the fact that there are few, if any, curb cuts in certain areas, meaning that pedestrians have to either climb over huge mounds of snow or walk in the roadway. As of Tuesday morning, the sidewalk on Lawrence Street around the Maria Sanchez School had not been cleared. Some schools lots continue to be used by neighborhood residents due to the ongoing parking ban. Continue reading 'Weather Information Without the Panic'»
Comments Off The Annie Fisher STEM and Montessori Magnet schools at 280 Plainfield Street are closed today, January 31, 2013, because there is no electrical power.
Did the Hartford Public Schools receive a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation? Continue reading 'The $5M Question'»
The takeaway from The Connecticut Forum on Saturday evening: if you want to be regarded as having vision and brilliance, you have to be given options in life.
Both Neil Gaiman and Neil deGrasse Tyson remarked that being able to work in the fields where their interests and talents could flourish is what enables them to be seen by others as visionaries. Though she did not say it, Neri Oxman‘s choices as a young adult exemplified this. She began pursuing one degree and was three years in before realizing that it was not for her. Had she not made the switch from medical school to architecture, her contributions may have been less groundbreaking.
Hearing this truth from these well-respected individuals, one is left to wonder– are all youth empowered by our society to explore their dreams and talents, or is their vision and brilliance potentially squashed by pushing them toward filling workforce demands?
Undoing poor decisions made decades ago has been reinforced as a trend with the announcement that UConn will be moving its Greater Hartford branch, currently located in West Hartford, to downtown Hartford. It will be joining the UConn School of Business, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Saint Joseph School of Pharmacy, and Capital Community College. Additionally, the Temple Street Townhouses were designed and are used as off-campus student housing; this is promoted as a housing option for students attending the University of Hartford.
Having colleges in close proximity of each other fosters cooperation among the institution and avails students to more opportunities. For those attending the community college downtown, having four-year universities in walking distance makes the dream of transferring seem more achievable.
It is understandable that some would be upset about West Hartford losing this institution, but town leaders have been positive and supportive. With other universities rumored to be eying the West Hartford campus, it is not entirely a loss for the town.
But there has been negativity coming from some Connecticut residents about where the university is intending to move. The opposition has been predictable: safety, parking, and traffic.
Concerns about personal safety are generally unfounded, as any time with a police blotter will prove. Most instances of violent crime in downtown occur around the nightclubs at times when classes are not taking place. While some neighborhoods rarely see patrols, there is a presence of both police and BID security ambassadors in downtown. The addition of students to city streets increases safety.
Parking, contrary to popular belief, is plentiful. Some parking garages are mostly empty because of nearby employers that have somewhat recently moved their operations out of Hartford. Continue reading 'Welcome Back, UConn!'»
One part of the extension display on the third floor of the downtown library
The images of Emmett Till’s unrecognizable, horribly brutalized body have not been locked out of public view since his murder in 1955. Mamie Till, his mother, insisted on an open casket funeral so the world would have to be witness to the violence that had been done to the fourteen-year-old.
The image is one that should elicit a strong response. A natural response would be to ask why. How, in a country that prides itself on freedom and sanctity of life, could this have been possible?
The photographic evidence of what people are capable of doing to one another should provoke a sense of horror in anyone who looks upon it. Important life lessons are often uncomfortable. Continue reading 'A Wreath for Emmett Till: One Book One Hartford'»
Comments Off Mid-conversation, Ben Shaiken of the United Way reminded the besuited audience and governor at the Lyceum in the Frog Hollow neighborhood that we already have a young population in cities– they just are not professionals. He urged people to think “about living symbiotically with people already here.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, one question was asked of Malloy by the audience about how to better serve the existing population in terms of stronger education — a question that the governor dismissed both times it was raised.
Instead, he turned the audience’s attention to development policy.
“Bad public policy can have a pretty rapid impact,” Malloy said, alluding to Hartford’s downturn following the construction of the Interstate and implementation of myriad other ill-advised plans.
On the other hand, good public policy takes time but has an effect. He noted how Bryant Park in Manhattan had been an arena for criminal activity until an intervention turned it around. Now, he said, the world’s second biggest fashion show in the world takes place there. Hartford, he said, could be a model in ten years.
Yet in Connecticut, Malloy says we have no policy or bad policy.
“We’ve got to get out of our own way,” he said.
But when several builders and developers expressed their struggles, Malloy turned the housing question away from policy. Continue reading 'Malloy Tells Young Professionals Not to Take “No” for an Answer'»
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