Culture & Community | Education & Youth | Politics | New Haven Green | New Haven Public Schools | Education
Top: Ana and Ana Martinez behind the Hillhouse Marching Band during a march and rally to "Protect Our Kids." Bottom: The scene on the Green. Lucy Gellman Photos.
When she graduates from New Haven Academy this spring, Ana Martinez wants to have figured out how she’s going to pay for college. So when she heard that massive cuts could be coming to the Department of Education—and affecting thousands of young New Haveners like her—it was only a matter of time until she raised her voice for the right to safe, fully funded schools.
Tuesday afternoon, Martinez joined nearly 300 teachers, students, labor leaders and fired-up families in downtown New Haven, during a rally to "Protect Our Kids" from the drastic federal funding cuts proposed to the U.S. Department of Education. As it traveled from Church Street to the New Haven Green, the rally was one of over 2,000 similar actions across the country.
It comes just weeks into a presidency defined by racism, anti-LGBTQ legislation and an attack on immigrant rights, and just a day after the confirmation of Linda McMahon, a prominent Trump donor with ties to Connecticut, to secretary of the Department of Education. McMahon has vowed to gut the department, on which millions of young Americans and their families rely every day.
In New Haven and across the country, some of that federal funding goes toward free and reduced school lunches, early childhood education, special education, and schools with Title I designation. Twenty-two of New Haven's 44 schools are Title I, meaning that they serve a large number of low-income students. There are 580 Title I schools in Connecticut.
Randi Weingarten, national president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), addresses the crowd.
"Maybe that memo that she [MacMahon] wrote yesterday may be her final memo, but it is not the final memo for the department of education," said Randi Weingarten, national president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), adding that she had come to New Haven to show MacMahon the power of teachers in her own backyard. “[We are] people from neighborhoods, trying to make sure our kids, all kids, have a real future. Not just the kids of billionaires, but all kids."
“Let me talk to Linda MacMahon directly,” she added. “You’re gonna take this money that you know students need so you can give it to vouchers for rich folk? We know the answer. And we know, because they’re even thinking about it, that we gotta fight. And we gotta fight hard … in every district in the United States of America.”
In New Haven, those federal cuts would devastate the city's public schools, which are already facing a statewide teacher shortage, chronic underfunding problem, and literacy rates that remain below the statewide average. Leslie Blatteau, head of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, said that the district stands to lose $21 million in federal dollars, money that covers everything from Head Start programs, IEPs (Individualized Education Programs) and English as a Second Language (ESL) classes to teacher salaries.
New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) Superintendent Madeline Negrón, who for years worked in schools as a teacher and administrator, said Tuesday that cuts would strain an already-stretched district and likely result in significant layoffs of both teachers and NHPS staff. Just last week, she received the news from Mayor Justin Elicker that the city's budget would not include the $23.2 increase to education that she'd hoped for. The city’s proposed $703.7 million budget currently allocates just over $213 million to NHPS education funding.
“We stand to lose a lot of money if those funds were to go away,” she said, lauding speakers and elected officials for taking the opportunity to educate people. “The reality for me as I look at numbers for next year, it’s gonna be very challenging. Still counting on these federal dollars, I’m looking at about $18 million that I have to find.”
Without federal funding, “that translates basically to layoffs,” she added. “We don’t have any other areas to cut. It translates to layoffs.”
Tuesday afternoon, that concern was front and center as teachers, paraprofessionals, students and parents gathered in a sea of red t-shirts and jackets outside CT State Gateway, prepared to march a few short blocks to the New Haven Green. Just past the curb, the James Hillhouse Marching Band warmed up, director Joshua Smith weaving between musicians as they got into formation. A sousaphone bobbed brightly beneath a traffic light.
Behind him, conversation rose and fell around handmade signs and union posters, drifting through the cool afternoon. Nicola Waterson, a Pre-K and kindergarten teacher at Elm City Montessori School, helped her daughter Rosie steady a handmade sign as the two prepared to march. Waterson later said that she’d come out to march not just because she’s an educator and a mom, but also because she’s a human being.
Top: The Hillhouse Marching Band in top form (as always). Bottom: Noel Salvador (in the puffy red coat), a third grade teacher at John C. Daniels School in the Hill, said he's most worried his dual language students, who speak primarily Spanish. He added that he's worried "about the trend that we're seeing of cutting public services in general."
As Hillhouse’s drumline lurched into action, Martinez lifted a sign that read "I've Seen Better Cabinets at IKEA,” with Spanish slogans scribbled in beneath the lettering, and began to walk. As the first in her family to graduate from high school, Martinez is already thinking about how to fund a college education. Currently, she’s considering joining the U.S. Army to qualify for the cost of tuition.
Her plan comes as Trump slashes thousands of jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, meaning even that feels uncertain. In her 12 years in the New Haven Public Schools, Martinez said, she’s seen firsthand what funding cuts and teacher burnout can do to both students and the educators they learn from. “I feel like students need way more education and way more supplies, so that they can get more educated than I did for our future,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s right that they’re trying to take away education,” added her friend Ana, a student at Eli Whitney Technical School who is going into nursing. “And I know that it’s because we’re getting something out of it, and they don’t like it. But it’s not our fault! We’re just doing what we want! We’re striving for the best, and they don’t like it. They don’t. And it’s not ok.”
Top: Ambar Santiago-Rojas and her sister, Jade. Bottom: Ben Scudder, who teaches history and social studies at High School in the Community (HSC).
As marchers fanned out around the Green's flagpole—and danced to the drumline—both speakers and attendees kept that momentum going, erupting into cheers as students, teachers, and educational advocates revved up the crowd. Taking the mic early in the speaking lineup, ESUMS senior Ambar Santiago-Rojas urged attendees not to look away from the educational and political crisis unfolding in front of them.
Taking a moment of silence of Jocelynn Rojo Carranza—who took her life when classmates threatened that they would call Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on her—she stressed the importance of vocal, decisive and collective action in the face of a country tilting to the right.
"We are here today because the future of our education, and the future of millions of kids across this country, is on the line," she said. As an active member of the Semilla Collective and the New Haven Immigrants coalition, she can read between the lines, and know that poor and working-class kids have the most to lose. "The proposed federal education cuts would devastate students like me. They would gut special education, slash funding from low-income schools, take away resources from English learners, and make college even more unaffordable for working-class families such as mine."
"These cuts aren't just numbers," she continued, "They mean losing teachers, losing support, and losing opportunities that could save lives."
In the crowd, fellow student Joshely Soto lifted a handmade sign that read Education Not Deportation and cheered for Santiago-Rojas. A junior at Wilbur Cross High School, Soto is already dreaming of studying psychology in college. She worries that cuts to the Department of Education will affect programs that could directly help her get there, like need-based federal Pell Grants.
"We can't just wait here and be docile" while the government strips away basic needs and services, she said. She emphasized how vital—and increasingly endangered—classes like civics and U.S. and world history are now proving to be. Because she's studied the past, she can see history repeating itself in real time.
Back at the Green's fountain—which had become an impromptu stage—Hearing Youth Voices Executive Director Maya Sheppard echoed those thoughts, a mic balanced in one hand. Like Santiago-Rojas, she noted how intertwined underfunded public schoola, gender- and sex-based discrimination and institutional racism all are. At her organization, which is based in New London, she works with over 100 young people to identify and advocate for social justice across the state.
In 2019, the organization was instrumental in pushing for a Black and Latino Studies elective that is now mandatory in all Connecticut public high schools. Six years and two presidential elections later, she wants people to understand that the need for fully funded schools is tied to the need for safe housing, accessible and affordable medical care, living wages and food security. 
Top: NHFT President Leslie Blatteau.
"Our schools are facing years of intentional neglect, y'all," she said, noting that nearly 40 percent of the state's K-12 schools have a Title I designation, which would immediately affect 250,000 students around the state. "This is by design. It is not a coincidence. And it’s unacceptable.”
Hyclis Williams, who leads New Haven’s paraprofessional union Local 3429, highlighted how federal funding cuts will affect not just students and teachers, but also paras, who include classroom assistants, special education teachers and social workers who are already stretched beyond capacity. In New Haven, she’s seen firsthand how burnout and low pay may send paras packing: the district has struggled to recruit and retain paraprofessionals, just as it has teachers.
Meanwhile, thousands of students remain in need of their services. Those include students protected by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and early intervention services like the state’s Birth to Three program. Instead of tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, Williams suggested, it was time to keep a commitment to those students and so many like them.
Top: Scott Meikle, who teaches theater at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School. Bottom: Hill Career Regional High School Junior Trinity Wylie.
“Cuts to education will have a ripple effect for generations to come,” she said. “The opportunities for economic mobility that many of us have thanks to access to education will rapidly fade into the past of slavery. We cannot let that happen!”’
As she listened in the grass, gripping a sign that read Funds For Schools Not Wars, Hill Career Regional High School Junior Trinity Wylie let the words sit with her. When she graduates next year, she’d like to go to a Historically Black College or HBCU (Xavier and Spelman are among her favorites, she said). Now, she worries about how out of reach that dream might feel, especially as attacks on diversity intersect with attacks on education.
“They don’t want people to be as educated as we can be,” she said, adding that her love of history means that she understands the racist, unsettling bones of this country. “There’s a lot of power in knowledge. It’s more than just school. It’s our lives.”
“Our Students Are More Than Numbers”
In a Zoom call just hours before the rally, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and NHPS and Connecticut Teacher of the Year Julia Miller also stressed the need to fund public education, including and especially New Haven’s Title I schools and the vulnerable students they serve. That’s especially true right now, as cities like New Haven find themselves navigating funding woes and a teacher shortage that go hand-in-hand.
Miller, who teaches civics and leads a youth justice program at Metropolitan Business Academy, was in Washington as DeLauro’s guest for Trump’s Tuesday night address to Congress.
As the two sat side-by-side in DeLauro’s office, Miller noted how devastating cuts would be to special education, English language learners, reading intervention programs, early childhood education, and before- and aftercare programs that are essential to both parents and kids. She and DeLauro noted how many roles schools and teachers play, from providing access to fresh, healthy food and learning to social work and case management.
“It will impact students’ ability to pursue higher education” in an already-stretched system, she added. On Monday, for instance, one of her Metro students came to her with an exciting announcement: she’d gotten into 17 of the 18 colleges to which she’d applied. But the news was also bittersweet: she would not be able to attend any of them, because the cost of tuition was prohibitive.
“Our students are more than numbers,” Miller said. “Every single one of them has a story … and I feel better about the world knowing they will go into it and make a difference.”
DeLauro, who grew up as the daughter of immigrants in Wooster Square, noted the value of public education in her own life. During her childhood, her mother would bring her to sweatshops in the neighborhood to see the working conditions. Then she would look at her daughter “and she would say, ‘get an education,’” DeLauro remembered.
In the decades since, access to education has helped her open legislative and professional doors that her parents could not have dreamed of, she said. In her family, she was the first of 12 cousins to go to college—a leap that set her on the path to Congress. Her roots have since informed her belief that every child deserves the right to learn, whoever they are and wherever they may live.
“Education is a new battle that we have to win,” she said, invoking both the late U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell (as in, Pell Grants) and nineteenth-century abolitionist and legislator Horace Mann. “The end goal is simple: they [DOGE and the Trump Administration] want to eliminate the Department of Education. And they want to do it illegally through unchecked consequences.”