Internships for Multilingual Learners in Norwalk high schools

L-R: Tricia Massucco, After the Bell Program Manager; Joyce Rios, MLL Career Pathways Internship Program Facilitator

The MLL Career Pathways Internship is an amazing opportunity that Norwalk Public Schools (NPS) provides for our Multilingual Learner students.

This program provides students with a structured experience to help them build self-esteem, develop mentor and community relationships, and learn about careers and successful pathways to employment.

Through the helping hands of individuals in the community, the program prepares our youth for success. Unnecessary obstacles are eliminated and an equitable journey toward career readiness is forged.

This one-semester internship provides students with real-world career experiences and an opportunity to connect the Culture and Career Seminar classes with the workplace.

Beginning her fourth year in leading this vital program, Joyce Rios is a former Carver employee who helped to manage Carver’s after-school program at Norwalk High School.

Students receive school credit for participating. Students learn interviewing skills; resume writing; soft skills and hard skills; and how to create their personal skills and job experience portfolios.

Joyce invites local businesses and organizations to consider helping make this program successful for our English Language Learner students. There is no cost to the internship providers.

Carver is helping. Joyce’s students are introduced to the leaders of our before and after-school programs and we encourage Carver volunteers and local employers to help.

As of March 2019, NPS had over 1,900 English Language Learners (ELL) throughout the district who speak a total of 35 languages and come from 41 countries. If you consider all the students in the district, we speak a total of 59 languages and come from 68 countries. We are certainly a richly diverse and multi-cultural school district.

NPS is dedicated to ensuring that Norwalk’s English language learners throughout the district receive the best education possible. The ELL and general education teachers are working hard to create the same learning opportunities for our ELL students that are afforded to all students in the district. Here is an EL Parent Handbook.

Free mental health health awareness events this month

In honor of #mentalhealthawarenessmonth, take advantage of the many free and public events happening in Southwestern CT in May. @TheHubCT1. #CT #mentahealtheducation.

Please support the Natalia Rodriguez Multilingual Learners Scholarship fund

Carver is a big fan of the important work Joyce Rios, ELL Career Pathways Facilitator, is accomplishing at Norwalk High School and Brien McMahon High School. Her department is in the process of collecting donations for the Natalia Rodriguez Multilingual Learners Scholarship. 100% of the donations will go towards college scholarships for current or former Multilingual Learners (formerly ELL). Please share this appeal far and wide and be as generous as you can for this worthy cause!

Appreciating our teachers!

Teacher Appreciation Week is celebrated internationally during the first full week of May each year. In 2021, it’s May 3-7.

Here is the White House Proclamation on National Teacher Appreciation Day and National Teacher Appreciation Week, 2021.

#ThankATeacher!

This past year, our teachers have been working harder and more creatively than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges as our teachers balanced e-learning and in-school lessons. Teachers faced those challenges head-on and dedicated many long hours to make sure our students learned and were not falling behind.

As this historic school year winds down, it's time (as it always is!) for all of us to say Thank You to our teachers. Their enthusiasm, commitment, and love for their students are an inspiration to all of us. They deserve our praise during Teacher Appreciation Week and all year long.

Who are Carver kids?

Our students are amazing!

We do not talk about Carver kids as being anything less wonderful and capable than the children growing up in the neighboring towns of Darien, New Canaan, Stamford, and Westport.

We avoid language like “disadvantaged,” “struggling,” and “at-risk,” which frame children and youth within a deficit lens and which places the onus on the individual student to “improve” or “progress” rather than on the systems that create disadvantage and struggle and that place children at risk. By speaking from a growth and abundance mindset, we remind our students (and ourselves) of the possibilities each student carries within themselves.

Each school in which we operate calls its Carver after-school and summer program by the unique name the school gives it. Our students are seen by their peers as being motivated, capable, success-oriented, and having the school spirit — because that’s who they are.

The other reason why each school names its own afterschool program is that our students are the heroes of their own stories.

Our work is about closing gaps of opportunity. Program design and philanthropy help to accomplish that goal. Carver has many heroes.

To be sure, we invest a great deal in our research. We have many dense reports on demographics, growth and performance metrics, and the like. We measure student outcomes through consecutive years as students stay with us to high school graduation and on to college and career.

In those reports you might find statements like this: Carver students are 0.09% American Indian; 3.34% Asian; 25.02% Black; 57.09% Hispanic; 1.30% Multiracial; 13.16% White; 20.48% ELL; 17.98% SPED. Overall, among all Carver programs, 69.05% of Carver students are Free/Reduced Lunch status. However, depending on the school served, that percentage is almost 100%.

But we prefer not to think of our students as a group or by demographic details, but as perfectly amazing individuals like Alana and William. And you’ll be amazed by Carver alumni!

Though Carver is 83-years old, we feel like these are still our early years.

The American Families Plan mirrors what we have believed all along. Our kids are capable of achieving the opportunities that are open to them. Many believe, including many of our most stalwart donors, that capitalism must be modified to do a better job of creating a healthier society, one that is more inclusive and creates more opportunities for more people.

The half dozen proposed education programs in this plan would constitute the largest federal investment in education in at least a half-century. Any one of them would be significant on its own. Taken together, if approved by Congress, they form a cradle-to-college plan that aims to reduce inequities. The proposed pre-K and community college investments are essential “bookends” to the existing K-12 system that are needed to set children on the right path and, later, prepare them for the world of work.

The opportunity to drastically improve American family life is suddenly right before us. And Carver kids are ready to take full advantage of this historic moment.

See the video of Carver kids embracing FIRST Lego Robotics

We thank Marc Alan at Factory Underground for producing this wonderful video for the Carver community.

Check out their new Factory Underground TECH. This is a nationally accredited secondary institute for music and film technology, located in downtown Norwalk, CT. Their diverse curriculum includes courses in music recording, audio production, and sound engineering, as well as film/video production arts — all the STEAM subjects that Carver holds so dear!

This video captures our youth discovering new worlds and capabilities through FIRST®, the international robotics community.

FIRST awarded Carver its largest financial award of $50,000 this past year.

Carver’s FIRST robotics program operates in nine Norwalk elementary schools and the Carver Community Center. There are six to eight third and fourth graders per team. Certified teachers and volunteer mentors assist each team.

Carver after-school students have participated in FIRST Lego League competitions for many years.

Project-based, hands-on FIRST® programs introduce students to engineering and coding/programming in an inclusive, creative, and hopeful environment where students work collaboratively to solve a yearly robotics challenge. Boosted by a global support system of mentors, educators, volunteers, sponsors, and alumni, their PreK-12 programs are designed to inspire innovation and help young people build a better future.

Watch Carver kids in our video above be inspired!

Vaccinations at the Carver Community Center today until 4PM.

Carver will again be partnering with the Griffin Mobile Vaccine Unit to provide on-site COVID-19 vaccinations for Norwalk residents.

Everyone will be asked to enter and exit from the exterior gym doors.

Walk-up; no appointment necessary; Moderna first dose; 18 and older; wear a mask. Contact us with any questions.

Virtual Talent Show, Friday, June 4, 6PM!

William is thriving at Rowayton Elementary School

Kathy Msaad manages our After the Bell before and after-school program at Rowayton Elementary School. She shares this wonderful news about one of her 3rd-grade students, William.

William has been part of the After the Bell morning and afternoon program since kindergarten.

We asked him about his experience in the Carver program and he said, “I enjoy it because it gives me time to do my homework and socialize with my friends. My favorite part is it gives me something to do after school and I don’t get bored.”

William is an outstanding student and is always willing to kindly help his classmates.  He enjoys participating in all the activities such as First Lego League (robotics), tech time, and various other enrichment programs.

William shows consideration to all the students. When it comes to communicating with teachers, and his peers, he is very polite and respectful. 

I consider William a great role model for all our students.

Way to go, William!

Alana-Rose Bookal is an outstanding 3rd grade scholar at Classical Studies Magnet Academy

Alana-Rose Bookal

Alana-Rose Bookal is a 3rd-grade scholar at Classical Studies Magnet Academy in Bridgeport where Carver provides after-school support. Alana’s 3rd-grade teacher, Georganne Stewart, who also manages our after-school program there provides this description of her wonderful student.

Alana is kind, respectful, and very helpful when interacting with her peers. Alana has incredible self-discipline and is very self-aware.

Alana has an impressive understanding and depth of knowledge about the things that interest her. She is a natural-born leader and is loved by her peers.

As a high-performing student of CSMA, the extended day program has become a second source of knowledge for Alana. She is a lover of science and a strong swimmer.

Alana has enjoyed attending The Discovery Museum STEM classes on astronomy and life science. Her most favorite class is scratch coding with Happy Code Club. The class she finds the most expressive is Mad Science, a “gross science” class, where she gets to conduct at-home experiments and learn about different forms of chemical reactions.

When she grows up, Alana wants to become a veterinarian. Alana has a cat named Twinkle, who she loves dearly and is always eager to share Twinkle’s latest mischievous doings.

We are very proud of Alana and her dedication to the program. She engages with the instructors, asks questions, and is always sharing the new things she learns each day.

We can’t wait to see what else the future holds for our shining scholar.