Amy Migliore with Ajibola Tajudeen, now a student at the Berkeley College of Music, at Co-Op graduation in June 2022. On Monday, NHPS Spokesperson Justin Harmon said the transfer would be temporary. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
A beloved administrator from Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School has been temporarily moved to oversee the development of a second arts high school in the city. As she makes the transition, Co-Op staff and students are scrambling to understand the decision, and keep things running smoothly while she is out.
That administrator is Amy Migliore—or as she is known and loved, “Ms. Miggs”—a veteran New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) educator who arrived at Co-Op as arts director in 2019, and helped steer the school through the Covid-19 pandemic and return to in-person learning. On Friday afternoon, Co-Op faculty and staff learned from an email that she would be transferred to Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School (BRAMS) to help with the development of a new arts high school. By Monday morning, when students returned to their classrooms, she was gone.
Several seemed to think the change was permanent following communications from the district, including students who said they felt blindsided (more on that below). On Monday afternoon, NHPS Spokesperson Justin Harmon said that the transfer is temporary: Migliore will be acting in an interim role while BRAMS Principal Jennifer Jenkins is out on Family and Medical Leave. That was never communicated to Co-Op staff.
Jenkins’ leave runs through June 30 of this year, according to personnel reports filed by the New Haven Board of Education. Migliore will return to Co-Op after that time, said Harmon.
“Amy is a proven leader as a school administrator and creative lead, and she will be crucial to the visioning and development of new programs as BRAMS transforms into BRADA ( Betsy Ross Arts & Design Academy),” read an email from Dr. Paul Whyte, assistant superintendent for instructional leadership, which went out at 4:01 p.m. Friday afternoon. “I thank Amy for her commitment to the Arts and helping guide its expansion within NHPS at this critical time.”
Students and teachers at BRAMS will be welcoming the school's inaugural freshman class in the fall of this year. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
It comes as BRAMS, an arts middle school serving students from across and beyond the district, builds out a new arts high school with a $15 million Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. In a phone call Monday afternoon, Harmon said that the district “has started pulling down” $1 million in funding from the grant, which spreads the $15 million over a five-year funding period. The district will have to reapply for the funding each year, in compliance with MASP guidelines.
Despite a federal assault on the U.S. Department of Education, “there's been no challenge to that [the funding]” thus far, Harmon said. He added that “that doesn't mean there won't be.”
Migliore arrived at Co-Op in fall 2019, after six years teaching at Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS) and one year as an instructional coach at the district. But BRAMS is where her educational career began: she worked there as a visual arts instructor from 1999 to 2012. In previous interviews, she has called it a foundation for the work she does now as a leader and administrator in the district. Reached by phone on Monday, she declined to comment on the transition.
“Her main role will be to support in leading the building in Principal Jenkins’ absence,” read an email from NHPS Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Leadership and School Improvement Kristina DeNegre, sent out to BRAMS staff on Friday afternoon. “Ms. Migliore will also support the team in the planning for the programmatic changes that are slotted to begin in the 25-26 school year.”
In her absence at Co-Op, Principal Paul Camarco and Assistant Principal Talima Andrews-Harris plan to help with day-to-day operations at the school’s arts office, which is responsible for everything from working with arts instructors to liaising with the press on student performances and exhibitions to celebrating the all-school musical, which closed its run on Friday.
Renee Whitaker, who normally runs the arts office alongside Migliore, will remain in her role. Normally, one of Migliore’s biggest tasks at the end of the year is the senior prom and senior class trip, which will continue as planned.
Monday, several students said they feel surprised and caught off-guard by the change—particularly because no one explained that it was temporary, or alerted them or their parents over the weekend (within a day of finding out, several shared the news with the caption "Bring My Auntie Back!" on social media). Dakarai Langley, a sophomore in the dance department who attended BRAMS for middle school, said that he thinks the transfer and BRAMS’ transition more broadly “disrupts the flow of NHPS arts students.”
“Usually, after their elementary school, NHPS students who want to learn about the performing arts go to BRAMS, a fifth through eighth grade middle school,” he said in an Instagram message. “Then after that, they move onto either New Haven Academy, or Co-Op. I think this is happening because of BRAMS’s transition. Performing arts high schools might lose the amount of freshmen that come per year because of this change.”
Laila Kelly-Walker at Parking Day at Co-Op in fall 2023. "“I felt shocked that the district would make such a sudden move," she said in a phone call Monday.
Senior Laila Kelly-Walker, who plans to study biology in college next year, said she felt a sense of shock, like a rug had been pulled out from under her. For four years, she’s watched Migliore build trust with both students and staff, keeping the arts running through changes in the school’s classrooms and at the administrative level (in August 2023, Co-Op welcomed Camarco as its new principal). Then without warning, Kelly-Walker showed up to school and she was gone.
“I was like, is this permanent? Is this temporary? Is this indefinite?” Kelly-Walker remembered in a phone call after school Monday. “I felt shocked that the district would make such a sudden move to someone who is so vital not only to the education process but to arts education specifically. She and Ms. Renee are the arts office. They’re an amazing team.”
As a proud BRAMS alum—Kelly-Walker studied theater and dance at the middle school—she added that she understands the reason for the transfer, and thinks of BRAMS as lucky to have Migliore for any amount of time. But she’s upset that the last months of her senior year—including the senior class trip, which has become the stuff of legend—are suddenly missing their arts director.
“It's super cool to see the change that they're going through,” she said. “But it honestly sucks for us Co-Op kids.”