Welcome Back, Norwalk! Carver Celebrates the Start of a New School Year

The hallways are full again. Classrooms are busy. Teachers are teaching, friendships are being renewed, and a new year of possibilities has begun.

Carver joins Norwalk Public Schools in welcoming students, families, teachers, administrators, and staff to the 2026–27 school year, which officially began Wednesday, August 26.

For Carver, the first day of school is especially meaningful because our work happens alongside students throughout the Norwalk Public Schools community. From our youngest learners beginning their elementary school journeys to high school seniors preparing for graduation, college, careers, and everything that comes next, Carver is proud to be part of their lives.

Our partnership with Norwalk Public Schools extends across the district, bringing Carver programs, enrichment, academic support, mentorship, and opportunities directly to students. After-school classrooms will soon fill again. Middle and high school students will reconnect with Carver staff and mentors. Students will discover new interests, take on new challenges, and begin setting goals that may carry them far beyond this school year.

And behind every student stands a remarkable community of educators, families, school staff, volunteers, and partners working to help them succeed.

The first day of school reminds us that education is built over time. A new teacher. A difficult assignment mastered. A book that opens a new world. A coach or mentor who sees something in a young person that they have not yet seen in themselves. A friendship formed. A goal imagined for the first time.

Those individual moments add up to something much larger.

Since 1938, Carver has believed in young people's potential and in the power of a community willing to invest in them. As another school year begins, that commitment remains at the heart of everything we do.

To every Norwalk student walking through a school door this week: welcome back!

Work hard. Stay curious. Try something new. Ask for help when you need it. Help someone else when you can. And remember, an entire community is cheering for you.

Here’s to a joyful, challenging, inspiring, and successful 2026–27 school year. Welcome back, Norwalk!

Black Philanthropy Month: A Legacy of Giving, a Future of Possibility

What a Week in Maine Leaves Behind: Measuring the Impact of Carver’s Ecology School Experience

Each summer, Carver students travel from Norwalk to Maine for something that is increasingly rare in young people's lives: days spent learning, living, working, and exploring together in the natural world.

The photographs tell one part of the story — hiking trails, water, woods, friendships, challenges, and the sheer pleasure of being somewhere different.

Now, Carver's assessment of the 2026 Ecology School experience tells us something more about what students brought home.

This summer, 85 Carver students in grades 6 through 10 participated in the program. Educators assessed students near the beginning and again near the end of camp, looking at outdoor and experiential skills, environmental awareness, independence and confidence, problem-solving, leadership, relationships, and participation in camp life.

The results suggest that the experience matters in ways that extend well beyond learning about nature.

Among sixth- through eighth-grade campers, 94% met or exceeded expectations in outdoor and experiential comfort by the end of camp, while 91% met or exceeded expectations in problem-solving. Seventeen individual students improved their problem-solving scores — the strongest individual gains recorded for the younger group.

The results among Carver's ninth- and tenth-grade students were especially striking.

By the end of the experience, 100% met or exceeded expectations for independence and confidence. Ninety-three percent met or exceeded expectations in both environmental awareness and outdoor and experiential leadership. Environmental awareness improved for 10 of the 17 older campers, and their average score for embodying the camp ethos rose from 3.29 to 4.00 — the largest average gain recorded in any domain since the program began.

That distinction is important. Older students are not simply returning to camp to repeat an experience they had when they were younger. Their assessment asks more of them: whether they take initiative, lead peers, volunteer for responsibilities, support younger campers, and model the community's values.

And then there is what the campers themselves said.

100% said they felt comfortable outdoors.
98% said they learned about nature.
96% said they included others.
95% said they felt confident.
91% said they tried new approaches when facing challenges.
88% said they handled their emotions.

Overall, 93% said they enjoyed camp, 80% said they would probably or absolutely return, and 88% said they would recommend the experience to a friend. Asked to name the best part of camp, 55% answered simply, “All of it!” Another 24% chose making new friends.

One camper captured something that numbers cannot quite measure:

“I really liked how everyone here got closer this year.”

Another wrote:

“I loved hanging out and teaching with the other younger kids.”

And one camper offered perhaps the most unexpected measure of what a week immersed in Maine's natural environment can accomplish:

“After this trip I will probably stay off my phone for a good 2 weeks.”

Carver has long believed that learning does not stop at the classroom door. Experiences such as The Ecology School give young people opportunities to test themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, depend upon one another, become comfortable outdoors, assume responsibility, and discover capacities that may not emerge during an ordinary school day.

The 2026 assessment gives Carver a stronger way to understand and document those outcomes. It also points toward an important lesson for the future: peer connection itself is an outcome worth measuring. Nearly one-quarter of campers identified making new friends as the best part of their experience, prompting Carver's evaluation team to recommend explicitly measuring peer connection in future assessments.

The buses eventually come home. The backpacks are unpacked. The photographs become memories.

But some things return from Maine with the students — greater confidence, new friendships, a willingness to try something unfamiliar, and the experience of discovering that they can do more than they thought they could.

Photos from Maine: Carver Students Explore, Discover, and Grow at The Ecology School

From tide pools, the ocean, and forest trails to canoeing, campfires, and time with friends, take a look inside an unforgettable week in Maine

What does a week at The Ecology School look like?

This week, photographs help tell the story of Carver students entering 7th through 10th grade as they explore the woods, waters, fields, and coastline of Maine.

The images capture days filled with activity and discovery: students hiking beneath the trees, exploring tide pools along the Maine coast, getting out on the water, investigating ecosystems, taking on new challenges, sharing meals, laughing with friends, and simply enjoying the rare opportunity to spend a summer week immersed in nature.

The photographs to explore are in the Google Photos collections linked here:

Learning Beyond the Classroom

The students are spending the week at The Ecology School’s River Bend Farm in Saco, Maine, a historic 105-acre farm situated along a scenic bend in the Saco River and just twenty minutes from the coast.

Here, the outdoors becomes the classroom.

The Ecology School’s educators lead students through hands-on experiences designed to awaken curiosity about the natural world. Forests, fields, rivers, and the rocky Maine coast offer opportunities to observe, investigate, ask questions, and understand the relationships connecting living things and their environments.

But look through the photographs and another kind of learning becomes visible, too.

You see students growing more comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings. You see friendships strengthening. You see young people trying things they might never have imagined doing at home. And you see the independence and confidence that can develop when students leave their everyday routines behind and spend a week exploring someplace entirely different.

A Journey That Grows With Them

For many of these students, Maine is no longer unfamiliar.

Carver’s Ecology School experience is designed to build from year to year. Students who once boarded the bus as first-time sixth graders return older and more confident, ready for new experiences and deeper exploration.

That continuity is part of the magic of the program. A place that initially seemed far from home becomes somewhere students know—and somewhere filled with memories of who they were when they first arrived and how much they have grown since.

Carver CEO Novelette Peterkin and Carver Chief Program Officer Brian Allert joined the students at The Ecology School as they explore, learn, and enjoy their week together.

Carver remains deeply grateful to The Grossman Family Foundation, whose generous and sustained support makes this extraordinary multi-year experience possible for our students.

See Their Week in Pictures

A handful of photographs could never capture everything that happens during a week like this—which is why we're sharing much more here.

Follow the Google Photos links above to browse hundreds of photographs from our students' week at The Ecology School. A few more photos are added below in the gallery.

Look beyond the spectacular Maine scenery and you'll see what this experience is really about: curiosity, friendship, independence, confidence, discovery—and the sheer joy of being young and outdoors in Maine.

Garavel Subaru Shares the Love with Carver Students

Carver is delighted to thank Garavel Subaru for a generous $1,000 gift presented to Carver following the dealership's July point-of-sale campaign.

The contribution is part of Garavel Subaru's commitment to supporting organizations making a difference in the local community—and Carver was honored to be among its Community Partners.

Carver's Kailee Scales recently visited Garavel Subaru to accept the check and celebrate the partnership. The gift will support Carver's work creating educational, enrichment, college, career, and workforce opportunities that help young people discover their talents and prepare for successful futures.

But the most exciting part of this partnership may still be ahead.

Garavel Subaru has expressed interest in finding ways to engage directly with Carver students, including potentially hosting students to learn about automobiles, the dealership, and careers in the automotive industry. That kind of real-world exposure fits beautifully with Carver's growing emphasis on helping young people explore careers, develop practical skills, and encounter professionals and workplaces beyond the classroom.

We are deeply grateful to Garavel Subaru, its employees, and everyone who participated in the July campaign. Their generosity demonstrates something Carver students experience again and again: when businesses, schools, families, and community organizations come together around young people, opportunities grow.

Thank you, Garavel Subaru, for making Carver students part of your Love Promise.

Help Carver Students Start the School Year Ready to Learn!

A Summer to Remember: Carver Staff Capture the Joy of Summer Camp

For parents, so much of a child’s summer camp experience happens beyond their view. They hear the stories, see the projects that come home, and perhaps catch a few photographs, but the friendships, laughter, discoveries, and hundreds of small moments that make up a summer belong largely to the children themselves.

This year, Carver staff created a special video for our summer camp families to bring some of those moments home.

The video captures the energy and joy of a remarkable Carver summer: children learning together, trying new things, making friends, playing, creating, exploring, and simply enjoying being together.

And this summer had a particularly special setting.

Carver’s signature summer camp programs operated together under one roof at the beautiful new Dr. Ruby Shaw Elementary School, bringing hundreds of Norwalk children together for five weeks of learning, friendship, exploration, and fun.

Traditionally, one of these programs has been based at The Carver Community Center and the other at Concord Magnet School. This year, both found a summer home at Dr. Ruby Shaw while the Carver Community Center undergoes a major transformation, including extensive renovations and completion of the new two-story Teen Center connected directly to the gymnasium.

The new location could hardly have been more fitting.

Dr. Ruby Shaw Elementary School opened during the 2025–2026 school year as South Norwalk’s first dedicated neighborhood elementary school in more than 40 years. Its bright classrooms, modern learning spaces, and welcoming campus provided an extraordinary environment for Carver children ages 5–13.

From July 6 through August 7, the camps offered full-day programming, with extended hours for working families. But what filled those hours is what matters most.

Children explored STEM, literacy and math, art, recreation, team-building, and hands-on projects. Community partners added still more opportunities for discovery, including special enrichment experiences with organizations such as the Maritime Aquarium. Experienced educators and Carver staff created an environment where learning and summer fun were never very far apart.

Summer camp also gives children something that cannot easily be measured: time together. Time to make a new friend. Time to discover something they are good at. Time to become a little more independent. Time to help someone else. Time to laugh.

Families value Carver summer programs because they provide a safe and nurturing place for children while parents work; meaningful learning that helps prevent summer learning loss; opportunities for creativity, physical activity, and exploration; caring relationships with educators and mentors; and, perhaps most importantly, a place where children feel that they belong.

The video our staff created captures that spirit better than words alone can.

To our summer camp parents: this is a glimpse of the summer you entrusted to us. Thank you for sharing your children with Carver and for allowing us to be part of these important weeks in their lives.

And to the Carver educators and staff who planned the activities, welcomed children each morning, solved the inevitable problems, encouraged the hesitant, celebrated the breakthroughs, and then took the time to preserve some of it on video—thank you.

The classrooms will soon return to the rhythms of another school year. The projects will come down. Children will move on to new grades and new teachers.

But for a few wonderful weeks at Dr. Ruby Shaw Elementary School, this was their summer—and this video helps us remember it.

Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy Earns National Attention for Bringing Students Back to School

One of Carver’s longtime school partners is receiving national attention for something extraordinary: Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy reduced its chronic absenteeism rate from a post-pandemic high of 31% to just 9.1%—the lowest rate among Norwalk’s 21 schools.

The achievement is the subject of an extensive feature in The 74, the national education news organization, which visited Ponus to examine how the school accomplished what has become one of public education’s most difficult post-pandemic challenges.

The answer, the article suggests, is not one program or intervention. It is leadership, persistence, relationships—and an extraordinary degree of attention to individual students.

Knowing Who Is Missing—and Why

The 74 takes readers inside Ponus Ridge’s biweekly attendance meetings, led by Assistant Principal Evan Byron, where counselors and administrators review students in danger of becoming chronically absent one by one.

They don't simply count absences. They ask why.

The team examines patterns, communicates repeatedly with families, makes home visits when necessary and looks for practical solutions when something about a student's experience at school is contributing to the problem. The result is an approach that is both data-driven and deeply personal: know the student, know the family, understand the obstacle and keep working until the student comes back.

Principal Damon Lewis describes attendance as an “all-hands-on-deck initiative.”

That commitment extends throughout the school. Teachers monitor their students. Families receive regular communication. Attendance appears in Lewis's weekly messages to parents. And the school has simultaneously worked to create something equally important: a place students want to attend.

Robotics, 3D printing and music technology are among the high-interest courses available to students. Ponus has expanded its extracurricular offerings to 17 after-school clubs, ranging from rock band and weightlifting to crochet and jewelry making.

The larger philosophy is unmistakable. Getting students through the school doors matters. What they encounter once they arrive matters just as much.

Leadership That Reaches Beyond the School Day

The 74 feature also portrays a school deeply connected to its families and community.

Lewis has introduced monthly Walk-Through Wednesdays that invite people into the school, helped establish a Hispanic parent group and an in-school food pantry, and brought immigration attorneys to Ponus for an evening program where families could learn about their rights.

“I want to meet people where they are,” Lewis told The 74, “and they are hungry for resources.”

That philosophy of meeting young people and families where they are is one Carver knows well.

Ponus Ridge has been an important Carver partner for many years. Carver works hand-in-hand with Ponus administrators and teachers to provide after-school programming during the academic year and summer transition programming that helps students prepare for the opportunities and expectations ahead.

Our partnership has given Carver the privilege of seeing up close the commitment to young people that The 74 has now shared with a national education audience.

National Recognition for Damon Lewis—and the Ponus Community

The story comes during an especially meaningful period for Ponus leadership. Lewis, who served as principal of Ponus Ridge for 11 years, was named Middle Level National Principal of the Year by the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

NASSP CEO Ronn Nozoe said Lewis “demonstrates how visionary leadership can transform school communities.”

The results described by The 74 help explain that recognition. Ponus reduced chronic absenteeism to 9.1% in 2024–25, compared with 17.2% across Norwalk. The article also reports that 91.5% of former Ponus students were on track after ninth grade to graduate from high school within four years.

And families are responding. In Norwalk's school-choice environment, Ponus had a waiting list for the first time, according to the article.

Behind each of those numbers is something more important: a young person who is in school, connected to teachers and peers, and present for the experiences that can shape what comes next.

Carver congratulates Damon Lewis, Evan Byron, the counselors, teachers and entire Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy community on this well-deserved national recognition.

We are proud to have worked alongside Ponus for so many years—and especially proud that an approach centered on knowing students, engaging families and refusing to let young people slip through the cracks is being shared with educators across the country.

Read the full The 74 story: “How a Connecticut School Slashed Its Chronic Absenteeism Rate.”

A Week of Firsts: Carver’s Rising Sixth Graders Head to Maine

A new group of Carver students begins its own Ecology School journey at River Bend Farm

Another Carver bus departed for Maine, and this time, it is carrying our rising sixth graders on their first Carver adventure at The Ecology School. We shared here about the students who returned to The Ecology School yesterday.

The rising 6th grade students are spending this week at River Bend Farm in Saco, Maine, a historic 105-acre farm nestled along a scenic bend in the Saco River and just twenty minutes from the Maine coast.

For these students, nearly everything about the week is new.

For some, this is their first extended time away from home. For some, it is their first trip outside Connecticut. And for all of them, it is the beginning of an experience Carver hopes they will return to throughout their middle school years.

They will hike through Maine forests, explore tidepools along the coast, canoe, investigate river and field ecosystems, take part in outdoor activities and challenges, and end their days gathering with friends and educators around the campfire.

The Beginning of a Carver Tradition

Carver’s experience at The Ecology School is intentionally designed as a multi-year journey.

Our rising sixth graders arrive this summer as newcomers. When they return in the years ahead, the trails will be more familiar, their confidence greater, and their understanding of the natural world deeper. Eventually, they will become the experienced older students welcoming and encouraging another group of sixth graders making this journey for the very first time.

That progression is part of what makes this experience so special.

Carver CEO Novelette Peterkin was there to send the students off on their Maine adventure. She will soon make the journey north herself, spending time at The Ecology School to share in the students’ experiences, see their learning and growth firsthand, and encourage them as they take on new challenges far from home.

The Ecology School’s Summer Ecology Academy makes the outdoors the classroom. Its educators encourage students to learn by doing—observing closely, asking questions, getting their hands dirty, exploring unfamiliar environments, and discovering how forests, rivers, fields, wildlife, and coastal ecosystems are connected.

But some of the most important learning may be harder to measure.

A week away from home asks young people to try new things, navigate unfamiliar surroundings, share responsibilities, make decisions, build friendships, and discover just how much they can do for themselves.

There were plenty of parents and family members at departure to offer last-minute hugs, words of encouragement, and a few final phone calls before the bus pulled away. Sending a child off for a week is a milestone, too, especially when that child has never traveled this far from home before.

The photographs in the gallery below capture the beginning of that journey: families saying goodbye, friends climbing aboard together, nervous smiles giving way to excitement, and a bus full of rising sixth graders with their pillows heading north toward a week none of them is likely to forget.

Carver is profoundly grateful to The Grossman Family Foundation, whose generous and sustained support makes this extraordinary experience possible and gives Carver students the opportunity to return to Maine as they grow through their middle school years.

To our newest Ecology School adventurers: Maine is waiting. Explore everything, try something new, look out for one another—and have a wonderful week!

Carver Students Are Off Today to Maine for a Week of Exploration at The Ecology School

Tidepools, canoeing, hiking, forests, rivers, campfires—and a week of discovery in the Maine outdoors

Summer adventure is underway for Carver students at The Ecology School in Saco, Maine!

From August 7–14, Carver middle school students are spending a week at River Bend Farm, The Ecology School’s historic 105-acre campus along a scenic bend in the Saco River, just twenty minutes from the Maine coast.

Carver is deeply grateful to The Grossman Family Foundation, whose generous and visionary support makes this remarkable multi-year experience possible for our students.

Traditionally held in June, this year’s trip was rescheduled to August because of the extended school year. The timing may be different, but the experience remains one of the highlights of Carver’s summer.

One last call before the bus pulls away. For many of our students—and their parents—this is a milestone: a first week away from home, and for some, a first journey beyond Connecticut.

For a week, students trade their familiar surroundings for the woods, waters, fields, and coastline of Maine. They explore tidepools, canoe, hike, investigate forest and river ecosystems, take part in outdoor challenges and nature-based activities, and gather at the end of the day for reflection around the campfire.

Carver leaders Tricia Ciccone and Yasmin Baez

The experience is about much more than a week away from home.

Carver’s partnership with The Ecology School is designed as a multi-year journey through the middle school years and the early high school years. Each summer, a new cohort of rising sixth graders experiences the program for the first time. They return in subsequent summers, building on what they have learned and becoming increasingly confident in an environment that may once have been entirely unfamiliar.

By the time students make their final trip the summer before entering 10th grade, they are no longer simply campers discovering something new. They are experienced participants who can encourage and mentor the younger students arriving for the first time.

Novelette was joined for the send-off by other members of Carver’s program leadership team, including Chief Program Officer Brian Allert, Director of Elementary School Programs Tricia Ciccone, and Yasmin Baez, Carver’s program leader at Naramake Elementary School. Their presence was a fitting reflection of the relationships behind this experience. These Carver leaders know these students, work with them throughout the year, and were there to wish them well as they set off on a very different kind of classroom: a week of discovery in Maine.

Boarding the buses alongside the students was the Carver team that would accompany, encourage, and look after them throughout the week in Maine.

Yasmin Baez and Timmy Williams are serving as lead chaperones and leaders of the Maine experience, joined by returning staff Colin Page, Bria Schottland, Josh Taylor, Shondel Sloan, Angelo Parkingson, Robert Raphael, Rontishia Mikel, Nick Calabrese, and Lyeisha Pearson. Eryka Montgomery and Marcia Madrigal are joining the Carver team for the first time this year. They are taking on all the responsibilities that come with taking a group of young people far from home. We are deeply grateful to each of them for giving their time, energy, and care to make this extraordinary experience possible.

And waiting for them in Maine is another remarkable team: The Ecology School’s own educators and staff, ready to welcome the students into a week designed around the wonder of the natural world. Tidepools, forests, canoes, trails, creatures, and the ocean encountered up close, stars overhead, and discoveries impossible to make from behind a desk—all of it is waiting for them. The adventure has only just begun.

Learning by Exploring

The Ecology School’s Summer Ecology Academy turns the natural world into a classroom.

Its experienced educators use hands-on exploration to help students understand the interconnected ecosystems that make Maine distinctive. A walk through the woods, a paddle on the river, a close look at life in a tidepool, or the feel of soil and plants can become an opportunity to ask questions, make observations, and understand ecology in ways that cannot be replicated inside a classroom.

Students explore each day with their field groups and can participate in activities ranging from canoeing and hiking to nature challenges and art. Just as importantly, they learn to live together away from home—sharing responsibilities, trying unfamiliar things, developing independence, and looking out for one another.

For returning students, each summer offers the chance to see familiar places with new eyes. For those making the journey for the first time, an entirely new world is opening.

And, as she does each year, Carver CEO Novelette Peterkin will make her way to Maine next week to spend time with the students and experience their week at The Ecology School firsthand. The photos shared here were taken by Novelette this morning as she helped send the students off on their Maine adventure. It has become an annual tradition for her to be there at the beginning of their journey and then to join them later in the week—far from home, immersed in the outdoors, and eager to share what they have discovered and experienced.

Over the coming week, we look forward to sharing glimpses of their adventures from Maine—tidepools, canoes, trails, campfires, new friendships, and all the discoveries that happen along the way.

The last few images in the photo Gallery below are from hundreds taken in past years to show you what our students today will experience!