“N” is for No: Community Speaks Against Closure of Clark School

“You have used the most powerful word in the English language,” Steve Harris, member of the Hartford Democratic Town Committee said, “and that word is ‘no.'”

“No” is what the parents, families, teachers, staff, and community have been saying to the proposal that the public John C. Clark  School be phased out and replaced by Achievement First, a charter school.

After this proposal was sprung on the Clark School last month, parents have stood up to say they are not interested in having their children’s school closed.

Before the Board of Education workshop on Wednesday night, nineteen people lined up to speak against this proposal in the cafeteria of the former Milner School on Vine Street in the city’s North East neighborhood, blocks away from the school in jeopardy.

Imam Muhammad Ansari, the President of the Greater Hartford Chapter of the NAACP, said “this issue is a civil rights issue when the parents’ rights are being taken away.”

He was not alone in suggesting that this proposal is absent of goodwill toward residents of this neighborhood. State Representative Angel Arce said, “not without the parents, not without informing the parents” should decisions of this caliber be made.

John C. Clark III, who said he was present to gather information, had concerns: “when was there ever citizen participation in the planning process?”

The sense of dispossession has been strong in conversations with parents and families.

“We feel that our school is being snatched from us,” said Lakeisha McFarland, who serves as the President of the Clark School PTO and is a member of the Clark School Governance Council.

The Parent Chairperson of the Clark SGC and a member of the PTO, Mille Soto, said she believes that Superintendent Christina Kishimoto “disrespected us.”

Since this proposal was announced Soto has been vocal, letting it be known that “we are very angry,” saying, “it’s hurting our kids what they’re doing to us.”

When most people were sitting down to dinner, parent-after-parent spoke about this unwelcome move. Gloribee Gonzalez, another Clark SGC and PTO member, said “we did not ask for our school to be redesigned.”

The sudden push for this change seemed confusing to all. Gonzalez asserted that Clark is “not the lowest performing school as some have implied.”

Joneisha Brown, who serves as the Parent Liason with the Hartford Public Schools Title I Program, suggested that Clark is “being branded as failing to justify handing” the school “over to outsiders.”

Who are those outsiders?

State Rep. Edwin Vargas evoked cheers when he asked, “who has the arrogance to evict the Clark School?”

“What is being handed down,” he said, “is a death sentence to the community school.”

Craig Stallings, who lives in the neighborhood and was freshly elected to the Board of Education on Tuesday, declared his support for the parents. “All I’m hearing from residents,” he said, is the need for a “transparent process.”

“Let these parents form the type of school that they want to form,” Stallings urged.

State Representative Douglas McCrory said that the process has not been done right, suggesting that it seems “orchestrated” by the school board.

“Superintendent Kishimoto is on her way out,” Imam Muhammad Ansari reminded the roomful of Clark School supporters. “I don’t see why there’s a rush to bring Achievement First into the Clark School. […] Let the new superintendent make the decisions.”

When the Board of Education approved a second Achievement First school in Hartford, it was under the guise of it moving into the south end of the city, though none of that was in writing. It became clear that this was not desired in that location. Weeks later, Superintendent Kishimoto told the Clark School that it was being considered for replacement by the charter model.

“The north end community deserves a voice in this,” Kimberly Daly said. She is a fourth-grade teacher at the Clark School.

State Representative Brandon McGee said that it is “extremely important” that he “support the parents and families of children” in his district. He said that the parents have explained why they don’t want to move forward with the closure of Clark.

“We have to continue to support all the parents in this room,” McGee said, “and those that are not here.”

A few Clark teachers spoke out, including Ermelinda Morizio, who said she has been at the school for thirty years. The special education teacher said she has known Mille Soto for seventeen years– a sign of the bonds created in this model of school. Morizio said that over the years, “I know I have made a difference.”

“The Clark School community is like a family,” Kimberly Daly said.

And family is one of the issues concerning teachers and parents. By closing the school, siblings would have to move to different schools, in some cases, based on grade level or need. It’s not right to split up families, Morizio said.

Juanita Ortiz, a parent of a child at Clark, cried while speaking at the press conference. She moved from Vernon to Hartford; she chose the Clark School, and, she said, she chose to move to the same street as the school so she could access it more easily.

Despite what is reported, Ortiz said, this school is better than those she experienced in Vernon: “These teachers do great jobs.”

Ortiz knew about the controversial disciplinary measures taken at Achievement First: “They’re segregating kids when they’re bad. . . our teachers find a way to keep them in school.”

At the very beginning of this school year, officials from Achievement First claimed that the school had revisited its discipline practices and that the matter had been resolved. Real Hartford has heard conflicting reports from parents with children enrolled in that school.

John C. Clarke III, the son of the man for whom the school is named, said “it’s truly a family neighborhood school and I want to continue to see it that way. . . . I am in support of the parents and teachers who’d like to see it continue.”

Some officials and members of the media have declared the opposition to Clark’s closure to be nothing more than complaining from the teachers’ unions.  Of the nineteen people who spoke, only one — Andrea Johnson of the Hartford Federation of Teachers — showed direct connection to organized labor. Johnson praised Clark as an “award-winning community school.”

To anyone who stayed the full length of the press conference, it was clear that this was not driven by teachers’  salaries or job security; this was a showing of parents, teachers, political leaders, and community members who resent this imposition.

Ortiz, a parent, said: “Over my dead body will these people come in and take this school from us.”

“Become powerful. Use the same system that is trying to take something from you,” Steve Harris urged.

City Councilperson Larry Deutsch could not attend Wednesday’s press conference, but had this to say:

Parents, grandparents, teachers, families and workers in the neighborhood are the most involved with our Clark School children. And with their taxes they pay for a good PUBLIC education, with a School Board and Superintendent that are supposed to work together with them, and not suspend or expel students with language or learning issues or special needs.

Deutsch, who serves as Minority Leader on the City Council, said “When the Board of Education comes to City Council with its plan, NO budget should be approved if it allows hand-over of Clark or other schools to private operators, and lets them be separate and UNEQUAL.”