Officials are saying that Renzulli's program won't change -- only its location.
As people hurried out of offices and buildings to head home on Monday evening, the sidewalk and stoop in front of Hartford City Hall sprang alive.
Placards reading “Save Renzulli” and “Minds Over Money” waved through the air. Children meandered wearing white shirts that read “Renzulli Rising” on the front, with the word “eviction” crossed out underneath.
One boy wove through the crowd with a clipboard. “I’m here to ask people to sign our petition so that our school can be saved,” said Earl Philip Trout Jr., a fifth grader at the Renzulli School for the Gifted and Talented in Hartford.
The district is planning to move Renzulli down the street to Rawson School. The Renzulli program has become a model for educating gifted students, and it was the only Hartford school to be named a “school of distinction” by the state Department of Education last year.
But rising enrollment at a nearby pre-school saw the district scrambling to find a solution. Renzulli’s location at 121 Cornwall Street was chosen as the spot for the pre-school.
Officials are saying that Renzulli’s program won’t change -- only its location. But location matters, said teacher Melissa Thom.
"Students feel safe if they need to go to the office, to the nurse, to the bathroom," Thom said. "When you’re in a school with students that they’re not familiar with – especially 500 students, that’s just a sheer quantity – that puts a little bit of a different feel of walking through the hallway."
Enrollment Discrepancy
The district has cited low enrollment at Renzulli and high enrollment at the Hartford Pre-Kindergarten Magnet School as the reason for the move. But the enrollment estimate provided by the district is misleading, according to sources within the Renzulli community.
Hartford Schools claim that enrollment will drop by five students next year, from 93 to 88. That estimate is based on projections made on October 1 last year. According to information provided to WNPR through a school source, Renzulli will welcome at least 106 students next year.
Even if 100 more students came to Renzulli, the school would still be under-enrolled, according to GislaineNgounou, the district’s chief of staff.
“The option of staying at Renzulli – when Renzulli is one of the slowest growing schools in the pool of schools we’re talking about – is one that’s just not feasible,” Ngounou said.
The school shuffle helps the district maintain legal compliance, Ngounou said. The state is also flat-funding education this year, so Hartford schools are dealing with a smaller pool of money to pay for education across the district.
What Happens to Rawson?
Last year, Rawson School was awarded a $2.25 million grant after it was named the district’s Lighthouse School. Some have expressed worry that plans to expand Rawson’s science offerings will be put on hold because of Renzulli’s move.
When asked about this, Ngounou didn’t address it.
“We’re working with our Rawson School community and our partners at Rawson to ensure the integrity of that model as well, so we’re confident that we’ll be able to have the two school models co-locate and thrive in those spaces,” she said.
Thom, the Renzulli teacher, said she hopes to collaborate with other teachers at Rawson, but merging the two communities – while also maintaining some form of independence – requires a delicate balance.
“They have a whole school coming into their space,” Thom said, “and I have been told that the rooms that the principal needs to put us in are slated for those maker space rooms and those labs, and I would be very disappointed as a teacher if I were on the other side and now we can’t do all these things that we had been excited to do.”
Rawson was renovated in 2005, and has a capacity to hold 750 students, which allows for plenty of space for Rawson and Renzulli students, according to school officials.
No Parent Notice
The move was done without parent involvement or school board approval. However, Rich Wareing, the Board of Education chairman, said that he stands by the district’s decision and that most board members agree it was the necessary move.
Superintendent Beth Schiavino-Narvaez “presented to me how she wanted to handle the issues involving space” at the preschool and at Renzulli, Wareing said. “She and I had conversations about all those issues this year.”
However, the Board of Education never publicly discussed the district’s idea to shuffle schools around, and Narvaez never publicly discussed the plan before it became set in stone.
“I understand that criticism and I’m sympathetic to that,” Wareing said.
Ngounou, the district’s chief of staff, admitted that communication could have been better.
“If we could go back and change anything we have done, it probably would have been to engage or communicate with parents differently,” Ngounou said. “We would have engaged them differently, a little sooner, if possible.”
