Here are the results of our Virtual STEAM showcase

Nathan Hale students with their drones!

You have undoubtedly heard that STEM, which stands for an educational focus in science, tech, engineering, and math, changed to STEAM, to include the arts. Carver students gathered virtually yesterday to exhibit their STEAM creations.

The event gave our middle school students the opportunity to display their hard work and engage with judges who asked questions and were treated to the unique talents of our diverse students.

The STEAM Showcase is always a hit with students, educators, and attendees.

Here are the winners of our Virtual STEAM showcase.

Best Overall:  Nathan Hale Middle School - Robotics

1. Jake Narcisse

2. Judah Foulks

3. Ethan Carter

4. Michelle Debrah

Most Challenging: West Rocks Middle School -Sound and Music

1. Tyla Brown

2. Surayyah Brown

 Most Innovative: Roton Middle School

1. Venezuela Video --- Cira Teran

2. Video with the Lego --- Veronika Kravchuk, Viktoriia Kravchuk

3. Scratch Coding --- Jason Alvarado

4. Stop Motion Video --- Kamarley Leger

Best Overall Teamwork: Carver Community Center - Photography and Digital Editing

1. Victor Potter

2. Jayden Labaze

 Top Presentation of Project: Side-By-Side Charter School - Structures and Bridges

1. Alyssa Austin

2. Dulce Garcia

Most Original: Ponus Middle School - Bridges

1. Marco Garcia

2. Jeffery De La Parra

3. Jadiel Torres

4. Amir Andre

Special thanks to our volunteers who helped to review the student projects and provide the student scientists with meaningful and encouraging feedback. And thanks to our educators and parents who through the school year are supporting our students as they explore the world around them.

STEAM skills are in high demand among today’s workers, and one of the best ways to equip future employees with these skills is to start early. Carver STEAM programs help students with these skills. After-school is a vital part of the solution for bringing more educational opportunities to kids.

THANK YOU, BANKWELL for being an innovation Sponsor of Carver's Celebrating Courage

Bankwell is an Innovation Sponsor of our Celebrating Courage gala on Thursday, June 24, at 7 PM.

Join us for a one-of-a-kind virtual event that will give voice and heart to why your support of Carver kids matters!

Bankwell is a longtime supporter of Carver programs. They are a true community bank.

Join us for the Celebrating Courage virtual gala on Thursday, June 24, 7PM!

Click on the image to go to our Celebrating Courage website.

Happy Mother's Day!

NPS Strategic Framework to be Presented via Zoom on Tuesday, May 18, 7PM

Norwalk Public Schools has been working on the next strategic plan to guide the district. In January, a representative strategic plan Task Force was convened and has been working with the Center for School Change to conduct an intensive needs assessment.

The Task Force includes teachers, principals, administrators, and community leaders, including Carver’s CEO, Novelette Peterkin.

At the Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, May 18 at 7 pm, Dr. Estrella will be joined by the Connecticut Center for School Change to present recommendations from this work. All parents are invited to join in for this important presentation.

To join the Zoom or to register to participate in public comments, click here.

To watch the livestream on YouTube, click here.

Public comments are also accepted via email (until 4 pm the day of the meeting). boepubliccomments@norwalkps.org

Norwalk Public Schools has embarked on several initiatives to gather research and data to help better understand the needs of the district, including an Equity in Education initiative and a review of the Human Resources and talent management function. A comprehensive facilities study is also underway, as well as a Special Education review to ensure the needs of students with disabilities are being met.

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.