Carver received a state grant for summer and state COVID-19 news updates

Carver was among those awarded State Department of Education 2021 summer enrichment grants which will expand high-quality summer enrichment programs for Connecticut children.

Our grant is for the new summer enrichment program we are creating this summer at Side By Side Charter Charter School.

Carver is also conducting summer transition programs for rising 6th and 9th graders at Norwalk’s four middle and two public high schools, the After the Summer Bell program at Kendall Elementary School, and its summer enrichment programs at the Carver Community Center and Columbus Magnet School.

We are grateful to Senator Murphy for having fought hard for summer programming funds to be included in the American Rescue Plan that passed Congress earlier this year.

Below is an update on COVID-19 as life returns to normal.

• REMINDER: The Treasury Department has released guidance on the implementation of the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. For reference, here are the links to the fact sheet, Interim Final Rule, and the program website. They also released a FAQ document, which can be found here, which they will continue to update as program implementation progresses.

• REMINDER: CDC announced that fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. Connecticut will no longer require fully vaccinated residents to wear a mask in most indoor and outdoor spaces.

• REMINDER: Governor Lamont announced that as Connecticut continues to recover from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, he is creating the Back to Work CT program, which will provide a one-time $1,000 bonus payment to 10,000 long-term unemployed people who live in Connecticut and obtain new jobs. The program is designed to encouraged long-term unemployed individuals to find work. The program is being administered by the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services. In the coming days, the department will create a form on its websitefor individuals to apply. The first applications will be accepted eight weeks from the start date of the program. Workers will be eligible to receive only one incentive payment.

For information on federal coronavirus relief, including help for small businesses, direct cash payments, and more visit  murphy.senate.gov/coronavirus. This page provides answers to frequently asked questions and gives a summary of available programs and funding. 

For the latest information about keeping you or your family safe go to  cdc.gov/coronavirus. For resources and information about Connecticut’s response, including updates about vaccine distribution, visit  ct.gov/coronavirus. 

Register now for Carver's Outdoor Soccer League, grades K-5, 5/28-6/25

Carver thanks State Representative Terrie Wood for her support of our gala

Second Vaccination Dose at Carver TODAY, 10AM-4PM

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

Norwalk Strives to Achieve Equity in Education

We know of no school district more committed to Equity in Education than Norwalk Public Schools (NPS).

The work of creating the next NPS Strategic Plan involves a wide variety of stakeholders, including input from the district’s senior management team and school administrators, as well as teachers, staff, parents, students, community leaders, and funders.

Here is an update from Nancy on Norwalk.

To help guide the discussion and move the Strategic Plan forward, NPS Superintendent Dr. Alexandra Estrella convened a Strategic Plan Task Force. The group includes Carver CEO Novelette Peterkin, teachers, principals, administrators, and community leaders. See the other task force members here.

This planning is occurring just as funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) hits the city and school district coffers. High-quality education can make a significant difference in the lives of individuals and families.

NPS is in a unique position to help create a more equitable community. Our local efforts will be strengthened by the Biden-Harris Administration’s executive order on advancing racial equity through systemic and policy change.

The NPS cohesive approach to equity in education reflects student needs, parent voice, stakeholder input, differences in school populations, and attention to funding, high-quality teachers, student/teacher/staff ratios, and sound and well-maintained school buildings. These are not easy goals, but they are receiving the attention they deserve to ensure equitable access and resources for all children and families.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, research shows educational inequities (nationally) for students of color (e.g., Black, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and particular Asian groups such as Burmese Americans), including overidentification in special education, exclusionary practices, lowered expectations, and a lack of access to instructional resources.

Other children and youth have also experienced serious and disproportionate disadvantages, including those who live in under-resourced homes and communities, those who have disabilities or specific health or behavioral/emotional needs, those from immigrant backgrounds, and those who are English learners. The pandemic has exacerbated inequities.

NPS and allies such as Carver will play a critical role in this process, as will other key stakeholders like parents and mental health providers. These groups not only have the knowledge and experience to reimagine an equitable and inclusive approach to education, but will also have access to fiscal resources—thanks to ARP funding—to turn this vision into reality and monitor outcomes. As education leaders debate how to allocate new resources, they should keep the following strategies in mind.

Focus on the whole child in the return to in-person learning

Students have faced isolation, loss, and trauma during the pandemic, all of which have impacted their home and school lives. Resources and plans to address these challenges vary across school districts, and many are ill-equipped to do so. For instance, prior to the pandemic, research found that 60 percent of schools lacked mental health services, and that mental health services for children of color were less accessible and of lower quality than services available to non-Latino White students. Additionally, school staff who may be best equipped to address students’ emotional and health issues (i.e., social workers, counselors, psychologists, and nurses) are in short supply, have high caseloads, and often serve multiple schools.

Incorporate parent voices into school decision making

Parents have played multiple roles during the COVID-19 pandemic and are most aware of their children’s academic, social, emotional, mental, and physical strengths and needs. NPS and Carver solicit feedback from parents on a regular and ongoing basis. Importantly, data collection tools like parent surveys—often analyzed to indicate average preferences—may not meet the unique needs of all students, such as those who have faced economic hardships or significant family loss, or those who have disabilities or special health or other care needs.

Involve varied stakeholders in planning

NPS and Carver are listening to parents while also engaging with students, teachers, staff, and other stakeholders when developing plans for the 2021-2022 school year. Students, in particular, can offer solutions to strengthen their own educational experiences. Norwalk is using virtual town halls, social media, focus groups, and targeted surveys to solicit feedback from students themselves, child and youth-serving organizations, local governments, mental health providers, and other stakeholders. NPS is engaging the community in collaborative and inclusive planning that will be better able to develop equitable plans that respond to the disparate ways in which students, families, and neighborhoods have been impacted by the pandemic.

Parent webinar series: Thursday, May 27, 6-7 PM

On "Celebrating Courage"

Our annual gala this year is for “Celebrating Courage” after the year we all just endured. We are honoring José Feliciano and the gala website has many new features worth seeing and enjoying! We thank our sponsors for making this all possible.

Heather Cox Richardson, a history professor at Boston College, is the most successful independent journalist in America, according to Substack statistics. Each day’s installment of “Letters From an American” summarizes the events of the day.

Here is her post for Sunday that speaks to a peer of our namesake, George Washington Carver, and to the meaning of courage as demonstrated by Frederick Douglas.

Frederick Douglass wrote his autobiography three times, but to protect the people who helped him run away from enslavement, he did not explain how he had managed to get away until the last version.

Douglass escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1838. In his twenty years of life, he had had a series of masters, some kind, some harsh, and one who almost killed him. But by 1838, he was a skilled worker in the local shipyards, earning good money for his master and enjoying a measure of freedom, as well as protection. He had good friends in the area and had fallen in love with the woman who would become his wife.

It was enslavement, but within that existence, it was a pretty good position. His peers in the cotton fields of the Deep South were beaten like animals, their deaths by violence unremarkable. Douglass himself had come close to being "sold down the river"—a term that referred to the slave convoys that traveled down the Mississippi River from older, worn out lands in the East to fresh, raw lands in Mississippi and Louisiana—and he knew that being forced to labor on a plantation in the Deep South would kill him.

His relatively safe position would have been enough for a lot of people. They would have thanked God for their blessings and stayed put. In 1838, Frederick Douglass was no different than they were: an unknown slave, hoping to get through each day. Like them, he might have accepted his conditions and disappeared into the past, leaving the status quo unchanged.

But he refused.

Click on this image to go to our gala website!

His scheme for escaping to freedom was ridiculously easy. In the days of slavery, free black sailors carried documents with them to prove to southern authorities that they were free, so they could move from northern and foreign ports to southern ports without being detained. These were the days before photos, so officials described the man listed on the free papers as they saw him: his color, distinguishing marks, scars. Douglass worked in shipyards, and had met a sailor whose free papers might cover Douglass... if the white official who looked at them didn't look too closely. Risking his own freedom, that sailor lent Douglass his papers.

To escape from slavery, all Douglass had to do was board a train. That's it: he just had to step on a train. If he were lucky, and the railroad conductor didn't catch him, and no one recognized him and called him out, he could be free. But if he were caught, he would be sold down river, almost certainly to his death.

To me, Douglass's decision to step aboard that train is everything. How many of us would have taken that risk, especially knowing that even in the best case, success would mean trying to build a new life, far away from everyone we had ever known? Douglass's step was such a little one, such an easy one... except that it meant the difference between life and death, the difference between a forgotten, enslaved shipyard worker and the great Frederick Douglass, who went on to become a powerful voice for American liberty.

Tomorrow, my students will graduate, and every year, students ask me if I have any advice for them as they leave college or university, advice I wish I had had at their age. The answer is yes, after all these years of living and of studying history, I have one piece of advice:

When the day comes that you have to choose between what is just good enough and what is right... find the courage to step on the train.

Saturday, 11 AM - 2 PM, the official launch of Norwalk Speaks! at this Community Health Day event

Norwalk End-Of-Year Ceremony Schedule

Our schools have now finalized times and outdoor locations for Grade 8 promotions and graduation ceremonies for the Class of 2021. Schools will be in touch with additional details!