New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and incoming School Superintendent Madeline Negrón announced Monday New Haven is launching a new summer pilot program.
The tutoring program will provide academic support for students in the first through fifth grade whose literacy and math proficiency levels were stunted by the pandemic, due to loss of classroom instruction time.
The program will begin in June and serve over 600 students through existing summer programs. The instruction will also continue in several New Haven public school classrooms in the fall.
For the summer pilot to be successful, Mayor Elicker said the program needs approximately 200 volunteers. The best way to give back to the community, he said, is helping kids learn how to read.
“This will be difficult, this will be challenging but it’s a real opportunity for us to showcase the best of us in New Haven. As a father, I see how important it is for our children to read and how it opens so much of a world for them,” Elicker said.
Last December, Elicker, New Haven Public School administrators and nonprofit education leaders proposed the $3 million initiative, which was then approved this February by the Board of Alders.
New Haven Reads is dedicated to supporting children’s literacy. It is currently working with 370 students every week with one-on-one tutoring. It’s a program that just works, according to New Haven Reads Executive Director, Kirsten Levinsohn.
“This effort is hugely important given the reading crisis that New Haven along with many other urban areas is facing. Teachers are doing great work but they can’t do it alone,” Levinsohn said. “We need the whole city to come together to support its children.”
“There’s a lot of work to do but together, we can make a difference for our kids.”
